


Any Day We Can Wash Out To Sea

by ashdeanmanns



Series: In All Our Years [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Depression, Domestic Avengers, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Man Out of Time, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23823979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashdeanmanns/pseuds/ashdeanmanns
Summary: 2014 - Steve Rogers was shown to still be alive.2016 - The Avengers split up.2018 - The world turned to dust. Steve lost his entire universe.Steve had just begun to trust the fact that Bucky would never abandon him.But Thanos had other ideas. And now the people must figure out how to live a life without Bucky Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: In All Our Years [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574968
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	1. 2010

**Author's Note:**

> I promised before the end of April, so here we are! First chapter of Part Three (2 chapters).
> 
> A couple things, before we get started:
> 
> -It was really hard to write Steve's POV. I'm so used to Bucky, and I had to change the style a little bit so I wouldn't accidentally write Bucky (I did that a few times. I forgot I was writing Steve, and I was like, "Oh, shit, I've been writing in Bucky's nonexistent POV for the past ten minutes, WHOOPS.")
> 
> -A lot of this is just getting a feel for Steve's character. 
> 
> -This is Steve's portion of the story, yes. But as I wrote, I realized that this series is Bucky's story. The complicated life of Bucky Barnes. We learn more about Steve, but we also learn more about Bucky. Things that weren't discussed (Civil War, etc) are brought to light now.

**| 2018 |**

Once upon a time, Steve had asked a boy with eyes more blue than the cleanest ocean where they were going. He hadn't expected an answer. They had one more day left before he would be alone, before the boy - who had suddenly become a man in a fitted military uniform, was _Sergeant Barnes_ instead of the Bucky he had always known and loved - would join the mass graveyard Europe had become. But Bucky shoved a newspaper into his chest, holding onto the pretty olive green sweater Bethany had accidentally forgotten after that last double date barely two weeks before America joined the war, his bubbe's star of David on a chain around his neck, and answered; " _The future_."

Well, here he was. But it wasn't what either of them had thought.

The future had not been kind to Bucky Barnes. The world hadn't wanted him, but kept his wrists tied. They took his selflessness for granted. He was a limp marionette, all but for the incessant tugs on his strings. Those insistent pleas were what made him spring to life.

Did those strings disconnect when his hands turned to dust?

Steve sure hoped so.

He wasn't sure what to think of a future without him. This new life that he had made as he reclaimed his name, it was covered in everything _Buck_ _y_ ; his family, his friends, his soft smiles, his deep kisses. Everywhere he looked, he saw pieces of him. He saw the locker labeled BARNES in the quinjet, right beside the one that said ROMANOFF. He saw Natasha as she sat beside him on an uncomfortable bench, hands clasped so tightly her fingers turned purple, staring off into an unknown distance. He saw the few personal belongings all of the criminal Avengers had gotten over two years, Bucky's old leather jacket and the closed mancala board that he and Sam would open and play whenever they were stuck in a safehouse or there was downtime.

The quinjet made a smooth descent onto the helipad at the Avengers Compound - a place that had been Steve's home for a good year, until the Accords had uprooted them. Leaving Wakanda with the last of the Avengers was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. But when he took Nat to the little cottage, there were only two goats in sight, sprinting around in kicked-up ashes, bleating for an answer.

There wasn't one. So Steve pet their soft little heads, put them in the care of a neighbor, and packed a bag.

Pepper Potts was waiting for them, hands clasped firmly in front of her stomach, her inner dilemma clear as day. She scanned who was present, who was missing - and her eyes took on a glassy look. She demanded, "What happened?" her voice a scratching hiss from the tightness in her throat. "Where is everyone?"

"Gone," Rhodes said, flatly. He was out of his suit, had been for over an hour. At getting on the jet, he had begun to feel trapped, and had to get out of it. Steve didn't really blame him, going so far as to agree with him, but had just tugged at the collar of the tough gear Shuri had gifted him last year, when he began fighting with the outlaw Avengers.

"We need to find Tony and the other people he was on that ship with. The kid was with him -"

Steve's head whipped up. "Peter?"

Pepper and Rhodes turned their heads toward him. Pepper's face took on an even darker look. With a slow, denying shake of her head, she said, "Don't tell me he's gone."

So he didn't. He didn't tell her of the confusion in Bucky's eyes, the devastatingly desperate way he had looked at him and then at the clear Wakandan sky.

He could practically see her heart break when he didn't reply. She took a tentative step toward him, and came even closer when he didn't move away. She raised a gentle hand and rested her palm on his shoulder. "You two stayed in Wakanda, didn't you?"

He pressed his lips into a tight line before telling her, "The princess fixed my programming. It was their way of - of...forgiving _him_ and making the struggle up to us."

"This Tony guy," the raccoon started as he scrambled down the ramp. Pepper jumped back, her hands flying to cover her heart, "he went into a spaceship that came here?"

Steve couldn't just stand around anymore, and not do anything. Feeling Nat's tired eyes on him, he marched into the compound. He walked the familiar path to the elevator, and stepped out on one of the living floors. He pointedly did not look at the closed door of Wanda's old room, or Sam's, just kept his eyes on the one that had once belonged to he and Bucky.

Steve almost collapsed when he walked into the first place he could call home in the twenty first century. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, his feet slipping out from under him so he was only being held up by the heels of his boots.

Everything was the same, from the wall of family pictures to the specific selection of mugs hanging by their handles on hooks underneath one of the wooden cabinets - a few undeniably handpainted by children, others declaring things such as _Badass Motherfucker_ and _#1 Dad._ Bucky always claimed that he had them displayed because they were gifts and it was respectful, but Steve knew how much they meant to him - The pillows on the couch had been moved, a well-loved comicbook of Peter's placed on the coffee table beside a half-drunk waterbottle and a notebook with _American History_ scrawled over the front.

Alpine immediately got underfoot, yowling up at him. He slid the rest of the way down the door and hooked his arm around her to pull her close for a few moments, before letting her thin body go. She paced around him, channeling her antsy, worried energy; She ground her cheeks into his arms, his thick TAC pants. When she rubbed up against his fingertips, he found himself jerking his hands away - the last thing his fingers had sunken into was the Wakandan grass, hidden underneath the uneven mound of Bucky's ashes.

She didn't need to get Bucky's ashes on her.

But she persisted and pressed up against his side, under his arm, curling against the curve of his body. Like she knew that his heart was hurting and thought she could help. He ran the inside of his forearm over her flank before getting back to his feet. His knees trembled with exhaustion, and he barely kept himself from tumbling down onto the king mattress.

But he couldn't sleep yet - not that he even wanted to. The second his eyes closed and his heart rate evened out, right when he was on the cusp of subconsciousness, he'd see Bucky and his outstretched, disappearing hands, the desperate way he had looked up at Steve and then the sky. And with this weakness, he'd find himself strapped down by Zola, caged by Karpov, brutalized by Rumlow, manipulated by Pierce.

He had to get the ashes and dirt out from under his fingernails. He had to get the gear washed, so the dust wouldn't get stuck in the dips between stitched fibers -

His hands slipped down into the small gap between the mattress and wall. His right palm pressed into something sharp, bendy. With an easy, though blind, maneuver, his fingers brushed the old, coarse leather, and he gently pulled.

The sketchbook itself was the same size as he remembered, but the contents had changed. Pieces of paper - thick, glossy white and folded lined notebook - stuck out at random. He pulled one of the thick pages out, surprised that it was a photo barely the size of his hand; of Bucky, standing on top of a gigantic orange bridge. The section at the bottom was labelled with red ink in Bucky's clean, but undeniably lazy, scrawl; _**Golden Gate Bridge, 1979**_.

In the year and a half Steve had been with him again - in New York and Wakanda - they had never talked too much about the sketchbook. He learned in the hospital that it had been released, along with a vague explanation of what the publication had done to Bucky's life. Bucky had never told him he had it. Steve had found it himself, when he once tripped into the side of the bed and knocked the frame out of place, and something clunked to the floor. Seeing the additions, having no idea where he and Bucky stood, he just put it back into hiding. He hadn't opened it, no matter how much he had wanted to see the new pieces that accompanied his old, life-ruining art.

Steve cracked open what had once been his, starting on the first page he knew so well. Little gap-toothed Bucky smiled up at him, his tiny hand caught in Winifred Barnes's as she dragged him away. Multiple photos - polaroids, he'd seen them before from Bucky's niece Bailey, and had spotted Bucky's polaroid camera tucked into a shelf in his linen closet - were nestled into the fold of the spine.

 _ **Hocking Hills, Ohio, 1998**_ ; _**Whitefish Point, 1978**_ ; _**Rocky Mountains, 1985**_ ; _**Grand Canyon, 1979**_ ; Bucky grinning between Chrys and Grant on the crown of the _**Statue of Liberty, 1984**_ ; Natalia, nose scrunched up in shaking laughter, hand outstretched to block the camera, **_2005_** ; a busy street with signs looming at the very edges, _**Koblenz, Germany, 1981**_ ; Bucky and another man both in dark sunglasses, silhouetted by the looming sun and dressed in military camo uniforms, _**Luke, 2002**_.

Steve aligned the polaroids in his hand, lining up the edges and the corners. He set them to the side, and carefully picked up the stiff, cracked lined paper. He slowly unfolded it, and was surprised - despite the logic that accompanied notebook paper - to find the page covered in Bucky's handwriting, a stark black to rival the glittery, bright inks labeling the photos dated after the mid-eighties.

_**Munising, Michigan, 1978** _

_**I'm not afraid to admit that there are things in life that I regret. But sometimes,** _ _**I'm** _ _**afraid** _ _**of what I have to admit.** _

_**I regret leaving you, though I never would have gotten away with evading the draft. I regret not letting go of the bar before you leaned too far out. I regret ever thinking I could get away with burying the past and making a new life. For years,**_ _ **I've**_ _ **known**_ _**that you haunt me. Nothing has been right since you left.**_ _ **I'm**_ _ **scared of the**_ _ **dark**_ _ **, of the world, and, in some ways, of you.**_

_**The skeletons are out of the closet. The corpses rose from their graves. What you and I had is no longer ours - the media has decided it's the world's. Hiding my face in my pillow after our first kiss is no longer a secret, neither are the curves of my hip bones or the darkness of our bedroom.** _

_**You've been out of my life for so long. Now that you're being forced back into it, it's like leaving you, burying your memory, all over again. The idea of you is being pushed on me, and it's like the fruit hanging just above Tantalus' lips - something I could once have freely, but is now used to torture me.** _

_**You were one of the constant good things, Steve. I lost you. And with you, everything good about myself - it just bled out of me. There's been a darkness in me since Azzano, a darkness I could never bear to share with you. You were so bright, built with purpose; it felt wrong to throw a shadow over you. Maybe, like Abraham magnified the good in you, Zola worsened the bad in me. Because** _ _**I've** _ _**never been good. There's always been something wrong with me -** _ **_I swore too much, my old man knocked my head into the wall a good couple times, I was completely submerged in the love I had for you. I loved you so much that there was barely anything else to me. Then_ ** **_again_ ** **_,_ ** **_I_ ** **_didn't need much. We had this simple life. I had you and my family, and as long as we had money coming in I had no issues._ **

**_Maybe that was selfish. But then, maybe it was selfish to think you could save me, on that train._ **

**_We'll never know._ **

**_These past week has been a whirlwind, and I've been anywhere but the eye of the hurricane. But they got me thinking_**. **_For the first time ever,_** ** _I'm_** ** _on my own. Even when I moved from home,_** ** _I_** ** _had you. I have no one to_** ** _answer_** ** _to. No work that has to be done. No one to save. And I have to tell you, after carrying that shield since '45, there's this weightlessness to it._**

 ** _There's nothing holding me back. No S.H.I.E.L.D., no Depression, no marriage, no fighting, no expectations. No nothing._** **_I'm_** ** _able to be whoever I want to be, do whatever_** ** _I_** ** _want to do._**

 **_I don't think it's selfish to want that._ ** **_I've_ ** **_given my all to the world, and_ ** **_I'm_ ** **_getting shit for having loved you first. I think I deserve to take something for myself._ **

**_With love,_ **   
**_Bucky_ **

< | >

"Pepper, it doesn't fit."

She brushed off his right shoulder, the black, white, and blue suit still having lint and dust stuck along the indents of seams and in the weavework. "It's flexible material, made for more hands-on missions and presentation -"

"That's not what I mean," Steve snapped, and was immediately washed over with guilt. Softening his voice, he amended, "This isn't mine."

She inhaled deeply, squaring her shoulders and pulling her spine soldier-straight. "No. But the name was, and the shield. A little bit of familiarity might help." She glanced over her shoulder. "Would a jacket make you feel better?"

" _Please_."

Rhodes was already on stage, with Natasha. Steve was supposed to join them whenever he felt secure enough to do so. They hadn't been out for too long, were stalling until he joined them.

He shouldn't keep them waiting any longer. He muted the undeniable displacement with the familiarity of a jacket - Bucky's, the leather soft from age and wear, smelling like sea salt, coffee, and freedom - dragged in a shaky breath, and pushed his way to the front.

His files hadn't been shoved out in the S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA dump, they were too valuable and covered for that. But he had been seen, there had been rumors during his time in recovery, and he hadn't tried too hard to hide after getting out of the hospital. The Avengers hadn't kept him a secret - if someone asked, they would supply a safe answer. He'd been on camera with Bucky for some of the few interviews he did before the Accords. While he served with Bucky, Nat, and Sam (sometimes Wanda and Vision), his face had been caught on the news.

Despite his known existence, a hushed silence came over the previously hectic, bustling crowd of New Yorkers and outside reporters. He was sure a pin drop could have been audible, but the pulse of his heartbeat in the back of his neck would have drowned it out.

 _The original Captain America had finally shown his face, wearing a suit that everyone knew didn't belong to him_ _._

But as soon as they were over their shock, the crowd threw themselves back into grief and anger, cutting something out of the situation to blame.

Steve felt the drag of air in Rhodes' lungs before he began to speak. But what he said was not what he expected. He barely glanced over his shoulder, just to be heard by he and Nat; "Steve? I can't do this."

He wanted him to speak, but Steve had nothing to say. His words were futile, for he wasn't the man he had once been - a man men had followed into war. Now he was one of the people to follow. He was a murderer, not an officer, not a symbol of America. What was he supposed to say? Pour fear down their throats and tell them to get over losing their loved ones? He didn't want to do that - he couldn't do that.

He held a hand out for the microphone, and Rhodes eagerly handed it over, like the device had been burning him. He swiped his tongue between his lips, taking a few steps forward. To get over the towering wall, he belted a loud call for attention, mic lowered. The volume of the crowd dwindled, cowering like a scared kitten. Satisfied, he raised the mic;

"We understand that your lives have just changed forever. We really do, because we are dealing with these losses as well. In no way do we intend to stomp down your fears, your confusion, because we are feeling it, too." There were a couple shouts that didn't quite make it to Steve's ears through the buzzing of his blood and the sound vibrations through the speakers, and a vicious anger came to life in his chest. " _If everyone would just be quiet, we can get to the whole point of this and tell you what happened!_ "

At his tight, angered voice, the crowd once again grew mostly silent.

"We don't know everything that happened with the ship in New York. All we know is that Tony Stark and two others, Doctor Stephen Strange and Spiderman, boarded and were taken to space. We are doing our best to find them...There is a man -" He shook his head. "He's not a man, he's an alien psychopath. Thanos believed that the way to save the environment, to solve the shortage of goods, was to abolish half the population. Universally. He fought us for the things he could do that with, rallied his army on the border of Wakanda. He killed Vision. Then he snapped his fingers and disappeared. I didn't - I just thought that he ran. But then Buck -" he paused, swallowing down the lump in his throat. His voice quivered as he pushed on; "He was breaking down into dust, and all I could do was watch...So many of us saw our loved ones vanish before our eyes. We all lost, in more ways than one. But there was nothing we could have done..."

He spoke the undeniable truth;

" _There's nothing we can do_."

< | >

Chrysanthemum Barnes hadn't shed a tear at her uncle's funeral, or her mother's. Steve very clearly got the message that even death couldn't shake her off her pedestal, or at least she wouldn't let anyone see it. So he was surprised when she burst into tears the second their eyes met. She raced through the room, dropping her key and wallet lanyard before leaping into the bed beside him. She pressed her face into his chest, linking her arms around his shoulders. He fit his metal arm around her torso, ran his hand up and down the center of her trembling back. He didn't say a word as she wept against his soft sweater, staining it with tears and snot.

Once she had cried herself out, when she seemed to have no tears left, she spoke into his sweater. Her voice was raw and weak - though muffled - torn apart by grief; "What happened to my dad?"

His heart lept into his throat. His eyes stung at just the thought of it, and he blinked to try and scare the sensation away. "I, um..." He let his voice die. Nothing he could say would give her closure. It wouldn't help.

"Please, Steve," she begged, on the verge of tears again. "I haven't seen him for two years, _just tell me_."

His vibranium hand ran up and down her spine, soothing parental strokes that he knew to have been patented by his mother. "We were fighting Thanos in Wakanda. Thor was there when Thanos snapped his fingers with the stones. There...There was this blinding light, and I ran into that area just in time to see him vanish." He shook his head, rocking in the dip of his pillow. "It was just so quiet. I heard the grass swish behind me, and when I turned, your father was watching his hands turn to dust." He sucked in a sharp breath, and forced himself to go on. "I got his attention, and he looked so scared and confused. Within seconds, he was gone."

Chrys squeezed her arms around him, holding on tighter. "Everyone's gone."

"Everyone?" he echoed, urging her to explain.

"Most of the family," she clarified, suddenly pulling away. She folded her legs underneath her and sat up. Steve followed her example, holding himself up with his metal elbow. "Bee, West, May, Greg. James passed from a heart attack after watching JT and Elijah - Sorry. His sons - disappear. Ella was found in a car accident on the bridge. Her kids and Lilli vanished, and she crashed into a car with no people in it. Peter and Tony are in space, they're probably dead. Just -" her voice broke, and she cut herself off. She lifted her hands and pressed her palms against her mouth, her fingers shielding her nose. She sobbed again, eyes squeezed shut, shoulders quaking.

Steve pushed himself up further, and folded her into his arms.

He and Chrys weren't close. They had never been given the chance to be, but he knew her well enough to appreciate her. She regarded him as a regular human being, but sometimes there was a wonder in her eyes. He didn't blame her - he was the reason her parents hadn't been able to have a happy marriage, the reason her family was torn apart. He was a story come to life, and - yeah, it was weird. But she was never unkind to him. Far from it. She accepted him with open arms every time they were able to see each other. She smiled and hugged him like he was any other member of the family.

He had a feeling they would be making it through this whole thing together. He held on tighter, and set his chin on top of her head. His eyes fell shut, and he listened to Bucky's daughter cry - eventually falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.

< | >

Steve's eyes were trained on the hologram looming around what was left of the Avengers. Sharon Carter's work ID picture stared at him when it popped up. It was quickly replaced by Peter Parker's state ID, his painfully forced smile making Steve's stomach twist.

"It's been twenty three days since Thanos came to Earth," Rhodes said, voice resigned. He spoke mostly to Tony, who was staring at the hologram with his chin propped up in his hand, fingers covering his gravely-set mouth. His IV trickled, tubes connecting to needles stuck in his terribly thin arm.

Last time they had seen each other was Siberia. Steve's hair had been wet with his own blood, Bucky's face beat to hell. He had watched them break their relationship, severed when Bucky slammed the edge of the shield into Tony's arc reactor. But when that ship had landed beside the compound, Steve didn't pay mind to the hatred Tony must feel toward him. He had run forward and caught Tony as he stumbled. He had been right beside him when he learned that the man who was more of a father to him than Howard Stark had ever been was dead, had a front-row view of the way he had faltered and immediately changed the subject.

Natasha went on with the report; "World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census."

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes popped up on the hologram, and Steve forced himself to finally avert his shining eyes.

"And it looks like he did...he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures."

"Where is he now?" Tony demanded. "Where?"

Steve responded, knowing Thor was too deep in his fury, too sullen, to do so; "We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through."

Tony cast his eyes around the room. He looked at Natasha, Rhodes, Bruce, the woman - named Carol Danvers - that had been the one to bring him home. His gaze landed on Thor, and he asked, "What's wrong with him?

The raccoon jumped up to answer, flippant and straight to the hard truth; "Oh, he's pissed. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but, you know, there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

Rocket shrugged. "Maybe I am."

Steve forced himself to redirect the conversation away from whatever the hell a Build-A-Bear was. "We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans and satellites, and we got nothing...Tony -" His eyes turned on him, "- you fought him."

He cocked his head, and dismissed him with a faux-surprised, "Who told you that? I didn't fight him." He was quick to reject the very idea of it. "No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the stone. That's what happened. There was no fight."

Frustration built an offensive wall in his chest. Tiredly - because he was exhausted. He wasn't sleeping well, if at all. His subconsciousness always gave him dreams fueled by Bucky and torture. He mostly spent his nights on the phone with Chrys, trying to track down Thanos, or letting Thor use him as a punching bag to try to find an outlet for his rage ( _which didn't help, but it was a great way to tire themselves out. Thor always gave him kind, apologetic smiles after their throwdowns, and called Steve a worthy opponent_ ) - he said, crossing his arms tight over his chest, "Okay."

"He's unbeatable."

"Did he give you any clues, any information - anything?"

He scoffed. "I saw this coming, a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

Steve had no idea what he meant. Assuming it was unintelligible, he dismissed it. "Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus."

His glare was hot, searing against Steve's. It was so sudden, such a sharp change from the look of forged disregard, that shock jolted through his chest " _And I needed my family_. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late, buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?" He pushed himself up from his wheelchair, stumbling though his hands were on the table. His palms slid, and the things on the table clattered against the floor. "I need to shave." He stepped away from the table, lunging toward Steve as he went on, "And I believe I remember telling all youse -"

Rhodes intercepted Tony's steps, interrupting him with a distressed, "Tony. Tony - Tony!"

But he went on as if nothing was happening, cutting further into Steve like he was just a piece of roadkill; "- alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? No, course you don't, you were getting your brain fixed - which, I paid for. But Buck would. And whether it impacted our _precious freedoms_ or not - _that's what we needed!_ "

With a steady voice, made of solid stone, Steve couldn't stop himself from saying, "Well, that didn't work out, did it?" He very well knew what had gone down in Sokovia. He knew how it had affected Bucky, Clint, and Natasha, the toll the loss of her brother had taken on Wanda. He knew that it was Tony's pressuring that had caused the creation of Ultron.

Tony was suddenly in his face, getting closer and closer. "I said, 'We'd lose.' He said, 'We'll do that together too,' because we were always together - and guess what? We lost. And he wasn't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers - We're the Avengers, not the Prevengers."

Rhodes nodded, and tugged on Tony's arm. "Okay."

He turned to him. "Right?"

"You made your point. Just sit down."

"Okay..."

"Okay?"

He reared back in, getting back in Steve's space. He straightened his back, tried to convince himself that Tony was tired and emotional, and needed an outlet. Outlets were healthy. Just let it run its course. "Nah, nah. Here's my point. You know what?"

Rhodes still attempted to get him to back down. "Tony, you're sick -"

He changed direction, pointing at Carol, who looked a little overwhelmed. "She's great, by the way."

"Sit down. Sit."

"We need you," he exclaimed at Carol. "You're new blood." Waving a wild hand, he yelled, "Bunch of tired old mules!" Within a few steps, he was almost chest to chest with Steve. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously low; "I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Not good enough. No place here," he gestured blindly at the people around them. "He made a place for himself in everyone's lives. He was a father to me, Clint was his best friend, he fucked Tasha into oblivion -"

Natasha snapped, "Tony!" as Rhodes spit out from behind clenched teeth, losing his composure, "Tony, sit down."

"- he and Bruce were bros right off the bat, and he could lift Mjolnir. He even made a friend in Afghan. He ever tell you about Luke? They got together once, but he couldn't stomach it. They get lunch whenever the guy's on leave." He stuck a knobby knuckle in Steve's chest. " _He made a life without you._ Now you gotta do it, too."

He barely had time to process the words - _Luke, the soldier in the picture from 2002_ \- before Tony ripped the nanotech reactor off his thin chest. He grabbed Steve's right wrist, turned his palm up, and shoved the tech into his hand.

"Here, take this. You find Thanos, and you put that on. _You hide_."

Tony's knees suddenly gave out underneath him. Alarm swept through Steve's entire nervous system, making his heart freeze and his breath hitch, the worry clashing against the hot anger searing in his chest and turning his stomach. "Tony!"

"I'm fine," he insisted, voice suddenly - almost - gentle. "I -" He didn't finish whatever he had to say before he fell to the side, unconscious.

Bruce immediately sprung to action. "Rhodey, get him up, follow me." The Colonel quickly scooped Tony up into his arms, and followed on Bruce's heels.

Steve was stuck, his feet practically glued to the floor. His heart was hammering in his chest, he felt it in the lump in his throat. Tony was right. Everything he said, he was right.

He jumped when Thor settled a strong hand on his arm. They had never met before the battle in Wakanda, but over the past few weeks Steve could tell that the God of Thunder had a kind soul and a heart of gold. He was one of Bucky's friends, and Bucky had always been a great test of character. "Are you alright, Steve?"

Since his throat was tight and he didn't trust himself to speak, he just nodded.

Thor - grief and a failed responsibility turning his face into a minefield of something that was once young and happy - inclined his head. Studiously, he said, "We're all here for each other." He clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing the muscle. "You're not alone. You're an Avenger - Avengers stick together."

He doubted he was an Avenger. No, he was a criminal. But he silently agreed with Thor before choking out a simple, "Yeah. Okay."

Before he even knew it, there was hope surrounding them all, little rays of sunshine poking through gloomy clouds of dust. He and Carol had shared a look, and a connection sparked between them. They could both tell, through their grim, determined expressions - kindred spirits, alike in motivation and trauma.

_Just like that._

It was going to work. It had to.

_And if it didn't?_

...Well, he didn't want to think about that. It had to. Or else he had no idea what he would do.

< | >

Nat knocked her bottle of vodka against Bruce's mug of tea, just as the fireworks exploded in the sky. Steve didn't think they sounded like gunshots, but he could definitely hear the resemblance and understand why so many vets couldn't handle them.

He found them beautiful. He remembered watching the fireworks in Brooklyn every year. They always made it work, even if Bucky fell asleep with his head in Steve's lap after a long day at work, or Steve had to finish a comission. Those were memories from his childhood that he valued, and never wanted to forget. Maybe those memories were what kept him from being pulled back into a warzone.

Chrys pushed her shoulder against his, to check in on him; "Fireworks okay?"

He shrugged. "The only thing that bothers me is how loud it is. But that's not a big deal."

"Well, you know, Americans gotta have their fireworks or else there'll be hell to pay."

Bruce and Nat both made noncommittal sounds of agreement. Nat said, dryly, "It's against the law to not have fireworks."

Bruce turned his head to her in dramatic, faux shock. "Really? What _important_ laws our government makes."

Thor disregarded all of it with a deep grumble of, "Midgardians are unusual," before turning his attention back to his beer. He had come from New Asgard just for Steve's hundredth birthday, and, oddly, Steve felt touched by it. Though, the sight of what recent events had done to the King of Asgard truly saddened him - he was getting thicker around the middle, his beard grew out in curly, unkempt tufts. He just seemed so _defeated_.

They all did, really. In their own little ways. Bruce was getting more green every day. Nat kept to herself, writing and doing her best to wrangle in the cut thread of their world. Chrys had packed West's clothes away, put her wedding rings on a chain around her neck.

Steve? He drowned himself in art, reminded himself of how he had once feathered gentle lines and shaped faces. He drew the new Bucky that lived in the Twenty First Century, with his decorative coffee mugs and bright gel pens, and his smiles that could mean more than the purpose of the universe; he drew Nat, bent over workbenches with Rhodes, Rocket, and Carol, working out the best operations. He drew Bruce, locked in a Hulk-proof cell, trying to work things out with his other half.

Bucky's friends were good. They took Steve in as their own, never let him down. He was thankful for the support system they made.

The birthday was fine. Chrys made him a cake and iced it with a yellow smiley face. Nat had insisted they watch movies (she had taken it upon herself to resume Steve's American Culture education, as Bucky had been doing before the Accords, and as Bucky and Clint had once done for her. Steve had no qualms about it) and they had ended up watching horrible adaptations of the story of Captain America. The viewing included horrible costumes from the sixties and seventies, a love triangle between Bucky, Steve, and Peggy that had Steve's face permanently heated up to beat-red, and the overall feeling of missing Bucky.

_But he always missed Bucky,_ _so_ _it_ _wasn't like he was thrown off his axis._

There were gaps in the quiet celebration. Their names were Bucky, Wanda, Sam - and more that the others didn't have to know about. Sarah and Winifred, Becca and Ellie and Dom. His birthday wasn't a birthday without Winifred's hugs, the horrible illustrations Dom made him when he was little. But he had long gotten used to the fact that his mother was gone.

Steve leaned in closer to Chrys, as a series of fireworks went off one directly after the other, splattering red, pink, and yellow across the spill of midnight ink. "Bucky and I watched the show every year. He made a big thing out of it."

She smiled. "Of course he did. He never did anything by halves - it was all or nothing."

They fell silent for a while, just watching the fireworks spark and sipping at their respective drinks. Until;

"You feel old?" she asked, the teasing turned down only a couple notches.

Steve stared at the colorful streaks across the sky, his mouth set in a grim line. A hundred years old was a milestone, in most normal lives. But his life was anything but normal. This was one post in the fence, one hole punched in his ticket. He had more years ahead of him, an unknown number in the unknown future.

One hundred years.

A hundred years of torture; of Bucky and the love they shared; of Peggy Carter's ever-steady gaze; of Bethany and Katie smiling and giggling; of war and bloodshed, so much blood that it felt like his hands would never come clean. He had already lived a full life, that was undeniable. What else could happen? Why did he need to keep living?

That was the true question, for Bucky and himself, that would never get answered - why must they have to watch the world age around them, and they remain frozen in time?

He just said, absently, "Old's an understatement."

< | >

Steve got used to wondering if this was what Bucky felt like, after the drawings were put out into the world.

Hate was such a prominent force in the modern American society - people would always want someone to love. Admiration was a principle of humanity, but everyone had a unique wickedness in them. There was always someone to blame, to torture, people that thought the prospect of ripping a person apart with their words or their hands was somehow fun.

People bonded over the debate of whether or not to love or hate the men forced to play Captain America. The nurses at the hospital hadn't shied away from that fact. What Bucky had to face, before and after the publication of the sketchbook, was horrible; and it was all because of Steve. Bucky was declared second-best, cast off to the sidelines but constantly told he was needed, valued. He really wasn't. He got taken for granted - as he was for most of his free youth.

But now that, for once, the Avengers had failed, and it resulted in an indirect genocide? No one could forgive them. People had a reason to despise them, but they didn't understand just how powerful Thanos was wielding the stones.

There was no doubt that Bucky was stronger then him, faster, smarter. He shot a bullet like he was Apollo and his gun was his bow. Just an extension of himself. A power - a capability - he used for good. Steve had watched his partner run to meet Thanos head-long multiple times, each time with a furious glare in his eyes that got worse as time went on.

Because of that, Thanos was able to smash his giant purple hand against Bucky's skull, when he caught Thanos's gauntlet and held his fist open, then left Bucky's limp body behind and advanced toward Wanda as she shattered the yellow stone in Vision's head. Steve wouldn't ever forget the way Bucky had fallen, his strings cut for the first time that day. He was a dead weight, and he crumpled.

Then Thanos turned back the green, runed dial, and Bucky was back on his feet, the puddle of blood on his forehead gone, that fire back in his cold eyes.

The thankfulness Steve had felt came too soon. It was a cheat, a lie, that made the blow that was yet to come worse.

Walking into group therapy - a VA psychiatrist Sam had been associated with had reached out and invited him. Steve sat on the email invitation for weeks, until Nat got him into her car and drove him to the meeting herself - made him acutely aware of the hatred running deep in the roots of their country. Everyone looked at him, and he felt like he did when civilians glared at him when he walked on the street; small and out of place.

Doctor Raymond Fischer, a kind-looking man with dramatic crow's feet and graying hair, immediately smiled at him. "Captain Rogers," he said in a soft voice, speaking in a tone Steve remembered his mother having when he was stuck in bed with cold after cold. "We're so glad you've decided to be here with us."

Steve raked his hair back from his forehead, his nerves putting him on edge. "Please, call me Steve." He surveyed the group, and his eyes fell on a familiar girl practically vibrating in her seat. Her hair was a bright blue, the dark brown roots apparent as her hair was gathered in a long ponytail. He couldn't help but grin at finally seeing her again. "Faith?"

The twenty-something year old let out a short squeal and jumped from her seat, just to launch into his embrace, spewing, "Oh my god, I missed you!" She reared back quickly, startling him. "We're getting lunch after this."

He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, obviously."

She immediately tugged him across the messy circle the group was in, pushing him down into the empty chair beside hers, the backs of their chairs against a round table. Steve leaned his elbow on the top, as Dr. Fischer asked, "Steve, would you like to say a few words about yourself?"

Feeling even more on the spot, his chest tightened. The only things about himself that the public didn't already know were select facts that were dear to him. Things he didn't want anyone, besides a possible few, to know. "Um...I know that you all already know quite a bit about me. But, uh - this whole thing has been messy, and it keeps me up most nights." With a bitter laugh, he joked, "At least I don't need that much sleep, thanks to the serum."

He stayed silent as the group carried on in it's normal routine. Dr. Fischer urged people to speak up, but never forced them. Steve paid close attention to every person that spoke, and committed them to memory; Joe, a retail store manager that lost a quarter of his employees; Casey, a teenage orphan that dropped out of high school to work and provide for himself now that all of his family was gone; Jonah, a veteran from the Iraq invasion with prosthetics from the knees down; Paula, a young woman that hadn't had many ties connecting her to one spot, caring for her need to travel and her young daughter.

Leslie, a middle school teacher that watched half of the students in the bleachers disappear, and came home to find her husband's ashes scattered in their bed - was the only one besides Dr. Fischer and Faith to speak to him directly. She set her dark green eyes on him from across the circle, and admitted, "I blamed you."

She looked him directly in the eyes, and maybe that was what made the already-known fact so jarring to him. He immediately averted his gaze, eyes stinging with guilt and the itch of failure that still hadn't left him - that kept him up at night when his brain wouldn't slow down, or when he needed another body curled up beside him, a strong arm thrown around him. There were so many things be could say, to Leslie - to everyone. He was sorry, he tried his best (they all did), they tried to get everyone back but Thanos had destroyed the stones.

Steve just nodded; "I blame myself, too. The team."

"Les, you know this is a judgement-free environment -" Fischer reminded, kindly.

She nodded her head profusely, and went on; "But I kept seeing the Avengers on the news. The press conference, for one. I - a lot of us, civilians, I mean, forget that you all are people, too, with families and loved ones. You lost your soulmate, too, and it just - it made me feel horrible for hating you. You tried. You did what all of us couldn't." Her tongue swiped over her bottom lip, and her green irises shone in the fluorescent white overhead lighting. "So, thank you - for trying."

Steve's eyes were wet, and he knew it. He didn't care. He didn't respond, but she could see what he couldn't say.

Afterward, just like it was promised, he and Faith went out for lunch. They ended up in her favorite deli, and took their subs out to a dog park that made it evident it was autumn.

Steve's time in the mental hospital hadn't been horrible, as he looked back on it. It had been exhausting, repetitive, and surprisingly crowded between droughts. Faith had been there the entire year he had been, seventeen and grumpy as the magenta bled from her growing hair. She ended up being one of his best friends, despite their different room wings, the biological age difference, which also brought the complication of their separate eras. She had been the first person to speak to 'Captain America,' and he was thankful that it was her.

She had a restless energy to her, an alertness that her ADHD medication couldn't temper. He figured she'd make this group therapy thing more bearable. She caught him up on her life, her family. Called herself Inhuman and showed him the sunlight she could summon in her palms. (Steve recognized the title of Inhuman. From the news reports on a sudden 'Alien Contagion,' from an intense phone conversation between Bucky and Phil Coulson, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The two super soldiers had been ready to fly out and help S.H.I.E.L.D. defeat Hive, before Bucky's search for Crossbones in Lagos went wrong and Secretary Ross called them all in for meeting.)

Since he was somewhat close, he took a detour to the suburbs before returning upstate. He parked his bike on the curb in front of a wide one-story house, with brown siding and an old wooden porch that had darkened with age. Instead of an American flag in the post, it was a rainbow pride flag with a Captain America shield design in the center.

He cut the engine and slid off the seat, darting up the path to the front porch. He pressed the doorbell, leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, and waited.

Chrys opened the inside wooden door, and immediately smiled when she saw that her visitor was him. She exclaimed, "Hey!" as she swung the outside glass screen door open and urged him to come inside. "You didn't call me, did you?"

He quickly shook his head, as he stepped over the threshold. "No, I just - I was in the city, and you're roughly on the way back to the compound. And I haven't seen the house."

The house - being, the first real home that Bucky had ever owned. It was first he and Peggy's, where their kids could have a backyard and grow up in a friendly neighborhood. Then, when Bucky was traveling and Peggy retired to an elderly apartment complex, it became Chrys and her husband's. Bucky had always told Steve that her family brought life back to the place, because, as Bucky knew it, children had always resided there.

A small foyer was the first room, a little linen closet to his right, a shelf inlaid in the wall to his left. He toed off his shoes and left them beside the door before following Chrys deeper inside. The kitchen formed a lopsided U, extending out in a bar that separated it from the living room. A small hall led out the right side of the house, another on the left that was parallel to the living room wall, two doors on either side.

When she noticed his silence, Chrys turned back to him, a gentleness in her eyes. "Dad liked the homely-ness of it. It was better than the apartment in the city, apparently." She shrugged. "I've only seen it in Grant's baby pictures. I've only ever lived here, besides my dorm and West's place before this was an option." She started to step into the kitchen. "Want anything?"

"If you're getting something, sure," he said, and slid into a stool that was sitting between the bar and the living room.

Chrys took two glasses from the cupboard above and just beside the sink, turning them over in her fingers before setting them on the bar. She then turned around and opened the fridge - pulling out a Lock-n-Lock and a bottle of apple juice. She set the items down between them, pulled a stool around into the kitchen, and grabbed a box of butter crackers and a small, rounded knife from a drawer.

She unscrewed the cap to the apple juice, and Steve just had to raise his eyebrows. She immediately felt the look, and glared. "I had a craving, okay?"

He smirked. "I didn't say a thing."

She let the glare fall away, and gently slid the full glass closer to him. "What are you really doing here, Steve?"

He wrapped his hands around the bottom of the glass, cradling it against the countertop. He stared down at the brown-yellow drink, inhaling the sugary scent of artificial apple. "Group therapy sucked."

Her eyebrows flicked up. "You went to group therapy?"

He huffed. "I was invited. A VA therapist Sam knew sent me an email."

Chrys unlocked the plastic container, revealing whipped cream cheese with yellow and green pieces in it. At his curious glance, she explained as she opened a new sleeve of Townhouse crackers, "Pineapple and green pepper. Aunt Ellie would always make it because she knew it was my favorite."

At the mention of Eleanor, he smiled. "I miss her."

A thoughtful look crossed Chrys's face. "It always seemed like she was Dad's favorite sibling. Because she knew about you two."

He shrugged. "Favorite? Not so sure about that. But he could be real with her, and he couldn't do that with Rebecca and Dom. He was definitely closest to her." He snatched a cracker from the plastic sleeve, and scooped out a bit of cheeseball. "She found the sketchbook. They talked it out, and she decided to tell us about Jessie."

She suddenly chuckled, leaning further over the bar. "Man, you should have seen everyone's faces when she told Grandpa George about Aunt Jess. Aunt Becca and Uncle Dom looked like she had just told them she didn't believe in shoes."

That caused a sudden laugh to punch out of Steve's chest. He could see it - from the time he was able to understand what was being said around him, Dom just had this face that he made whenever he heard complete and utter bullshit - like he had just sucked on a lemon as someone ran naked through the street. With grin made from memory on his face, he said, "I can imagine. I'm still upset that I never got to meet her."

Chrys frowned. "Yeah, she passed before you were free." She covered her discomfort by stuffing a whole cracker in her mouth, loaded with too much of the pineapple cheeseball. Steve stayed silent, not sure what to say. He took a large sip of the apple juice she had poured for him, ate some of the cheeseball, trying to figure out what to say. He had nothing good, and she had already gone through so much. She didn't need him dragging her down when he didn't have to do that.

But, these days, everyone was upset. It seemed like there was no stop to it. The world still hadn't been able to take its place back upon its axis.

Chrys finally began to ask, eyes focused on the cheeseball between them, "Were you...?" but her voice died when she seemed to have thought better of her words.

"Was I...?" he urged her on, curious as to what she had planned to say.

"Were you ever mad at him, for moving on so fast?"

The words took him by surprise. He knew that barely anything fazed Chrys, but he hadn't expected her to be so forward. They still hadn't gone into any sort of depth about Steve's relationship with her father, even though they probably should have addressed the elephant in the room much sooner than months after the Decimation.

Steve told her the truth. She wasn't a little kid, she was in her late fifties, and if she asked something like that she certainly had a reason to. "No. He did what he had to do. If Peggy was the answer, then that was that." He turned his head back to look at her, and studied her featuers. He often forgot that Bucky's children weren't just his, they were also Peggy's - Peggy, with her will made of steel, a tongue sharper than any blade, and a steady glare that could make any man in his right mind squirm. Chrys was a mix of both families - Winifred's blond hair, Peggy's strong jaw, Bucky's eyes and the fair, though dark, complexion that stemmed from his mother's roots in Balta. Wanting to know the reason for the question; "Why?"

She released a long-suffering sigh. "It's almost been a year since the Decimation. Four more months." Steve didn't say a word, just waited on her. She pursed her lips, a muscle in her cheek twitching. "There's this guy. Lost his wife, before...everything. He's really sweet. Keeps leaving flowers on the porch."

A small, sympathetic smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "And you're scared."

"Maybe not so much scared, as...guilty?" She ran the pad of her thumb over the opposite knuckle. "Some days it feels like it was just yesterday that everyone vanished. Others, it feels like it's been years. And I don't...I don't know how long I should wait." She sniffled, and unclasped her hands to scratch at her cheekbone. "I packed up West's clothes last month. I felt like shit for doing it." She shook her head all of a sudden, a jarring movement. "You haven't touched Dad's, have you?"

He also shook his head. With a dry mouth, he vocalized, "No, I haven't. It doesn't really feel like I have a place at the compound, it feels wrong to move _anything_ because of that."

"But you get so used to having someone else's things there. It's just part of the place now."

He nodded. He'd felt that way after his ma died, when he and the Barneses went through her things, separated it all into _Keep_ and _Toss_ piles. Things that were kept, that Steve couldn't take, went with Winifred and stayed with her. He felt it with Bucky, too - he couldn't bear to box up his clothes, didn't want to pull his collage of family photos apart. Part of him didn't believe that there was a wall behind all of them.

Steve leaned forward, crossing his arms and placing his elbows on his knees. "What are you waiting for? A long enough time where it feels justified to move on, or for a reason to say other than a man that's dead?"

"Nevermind. When you put it like that..." she whispered, rubbing at her temples. A little louder, she asked, "I should give Henry the benefit of the doubt, right?"

"In my hundred years of experience -" this caused her to roll her eyes, though a smirk flickered over her flat frown, "- I think you should take your time. Don't push anything. And he's been through this - he understands, so if he's a good one he'll be patient."

Chrys was silent for a while, staring down at her lap. Finally, muffled from where the heel of her hand cradled her jaw; "Do you ever think about getting back out there?"

Steve immediately scoffed. "It's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience." After a few moments, when Chrys gave sent a sweltering glare his way (that had chilled Steve to the very bone. He saw Winifred and the powerful Barnes family stares, that Bucky would turn on him if he was being an idiot - which, sadly, was often), he gave a defeated sigh and supplied a confession; "No, I don't. There's no reason for me to turn to anyone else, nothing like Bucky had. And I don't want anyone else, because it..." He shrugged, unable to find the exact words. He took a few moments to compose his thoughts. "I wouldn't ever be able to love someone the way I love him. I got the real deal. There's no use in having something less than that, when I know how it feels."

**| 2019 |**

Steve tapped at the device in his ear. The comm was bigger than what he'd used in the airport in Germany, more like one of those bluetooth earpieces he saw business people use while they power-walked down the street. But it got the job done, so he wouldn't complain when there was nothing wrong with it. He pulled it off as he came back to the quinjet, where Nat was still and silent in the pilot's seat.

Steve knew better than to try and speak to her. The mission had been a bust. Clint Barton was long gone, left a trail of blood in his wake. Instead, as Nat got the quinjet up and running, starting off for the place they could call home though it didn't feel like it, he pulled apart his suit. He unfastened the belt, ripped the sturdy velcro and unzipped the top piece, so he could shrug it off. He left the TAC pants on, but loosened his boots before curling up on one of the benches.

When they got to the compound, they immediately went to their rooms to clean up. Steve got a steaming hot shower that turned him beat-red, and felt relieved to get the blood out from under his fingernails. He emerged with damp hair, dressed in sweats and a bleach-stained black tank top. He silently joined Natasha on the walk to the main lounge, knowing she was probably going to get something to eat and go back to her room, or sink into the corner of the couch and watch a movie.

Chrys had beat her to that last punch. She was curled up with a fleece blanket drawn over her legs, her eyes focused on the flatscreen. An animated house soared through the air, a cloud of brightly colored balloons keeping it afloat. A large Tupperware container sat on the coffee table. She looked up when she heard them enter the room. "How'd it go?"

Natasha didn't reply, just planted herself on the couch and pulled the Tupperware on her lap. Steve was walking around the couch to sit in a plush armchair as she pulled the top off, and released a long sigh. The undeniable scent of chocolate, and vanilla met his nose.

"Today's V-Day, and I..." Chrys's voice died when Nat turned her head away from the container of cookies, their gazes locking together in some sort of connection, bonding over something only they knew. She pursed her lips for a few moments before going on; "It's a nice tradition."

Natasha's eyes were suddenly glassy with unshed tears. She sniffled and squeezed her eyes shut, ducking her head down as her hand came up to cover her mouth. The muffled sob that caused her shoulders to shudder shocked him. She hadn't cried in front of anyone. She teared up, but even that was rare.

Chrys moved the Tupperware off Nat's lap, and shuffled across the couch to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She murmured soft, 'Sh, sh, sh's in her ear, alongside a gentle, 'Just let it out. It's okay.'

After a few minutes, Steve broke free from his shocked trance and sat down on the floor in front of Nat, folding his arms over her knee. In response, she dropped an arm over his shoulders, leaning down into him.

Chrys waited for her to calm down a little, before murmuring, "You know what we're gonna do?" as she continued to rub soothing circles in Nat's back.

She sniffled, but didn't say a word.

"We're going to eat these cookies, because they'd want us to...They'd _expect_ you to."

She gasped with sudden laughter, a sound that scraped out through her tight throat. She took her arms from around Steve and used her palms to wipe at her flushed cheeks.

< | >

"Steve?"

For the first time, he found the courage. With Faith's warm presence beside him, he began;

"After I got out of HYDRA and the hospital Stark got me to, I had no idea what to do. I read that Buck had gotten married to Peg, they had kids. I read that he was basically as good as engaged with Natasha. We remained in a constant state of just friends with horrible unspoken tension. When the Accords went down, the king of Wakanda offered us help. They told me they could fix the Winter Soldier programming in my head, and I went under cyro for about a year. Afterward, we were living together again. Just us, no Avengers on the other side of the wall. It took months to work up the courage to finally break the ice with him. Turns out, he just didn't want to accidentally make a decision for me. He was waiting for me to take that first step...Things were somewhere close to normal, and I finally got used to the fact that he wasn't going anywhere. He wanted me, I was still somehow good enough for him, and he was always going to come back." He shrugged. "If I hadn't turned, I wouldn't even have known. He went so silently, he looked so scared...Once again, I have no idea what I'm doing. It's been almost a year, I haven't gotten anywhere. Bucky - _Supersoldiers weren't made to die._ " The words fell from his lips with his own personal anger over the matter, but also the grief and selfishness that screamed _I always want Bucky. Right beside me. That's how things should be,_ _I_ _can't have it any other way._

"Thor killed Thanos, I saw that psychopath die right in front of me, watched his head roll on the floor. That didn't do a thing. The stones were destroyed, Sam, Wanda, Bucky, half the universe, are always going to be - they're always going to be gone."

He raked his fingers through his hair, pulling the long front piece off his forehead. There was a heavy silence among the group, eyes that refused to touch him and words that couldn't ever be said.

"I've spent so much of my life not being good enough. Being a failure at everything. I couldn't work, I couldn't pay for my own medication, I had nothing to give for my part of the rent. I had to change my entire life just to go to war. Then I was Captain America, and everyone suddenly loved me. But there was someone who loved me the way I was made to be, from the very beginning. And now I feel like I've buried him deeper. I couldn't do a thing to save him, and how many other people."

He was drained by the time he got back to the compound. The scent of seared chicken and garlic filled his nose, from deep in the building. But he first went to his room, taking off his shoes and exchanged his jeans for a pair of Bucky's old oversized pajama pants. They were patterned with sunflowers, bright and yellow and somehow happy, and the yellow ribbon drawstrings were tied with a little bow.

He made his way to the lounge attached to the kitchen, and found Natasha slaving away at the stove. He sighed, and came up behind her. His voice cracked - his first time using it since promptly breaking into tears at group - when he asked, "Anything I can help with?"

She turned skeptical eyes on him. "How was group?

He grunted in reply, turning away from her. The food was done within minutes, and Steve grabbed the plates from a shelf. Scrambled eggs and buttered toast, roasted brocolli seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes. They ate in front of the TV, the news on. They watched the brand-new reports, of the War on Terror finally coming to an end, governments overseas that were still unstable.

During a debate between 'specialists' and 'academic professionals' that kept going in circles, Steve turned to Nat. "He fought in it, right?"

She nodded, focused on spearing a piece of egg and brocolli on her fork. As she did so, words on the television brought them back to attention.

They listened to the horrible talk about Bucky, anger simmering right under Steve's skin. They said he should have done his job and been a full time soldier, instead of refusing to be on the front lines and working more with S.H.I.E.L.D..

Nat's face pulled into a harsh sneer. "They don't know a thing. S.H.I.E.L.D.. would run Spec Ops. Bucky, Clint, and I invaded bases for the Army, if S.H.I.E.L.D. sent us to." She scoffed. "They're just snobby scholars. 'I have a briefcase and a suit for every day of the week, I pretend I know shit!'"

Steve interjected, before she could get lost; "I talked today."

She seemed to know what he meant, stopping short of her annoyance. After a few moments, her face softened and she inclined her head, reaching across the couch to pat his knee. "I'm proud of you."

Those words sunk their powerful claws into his chest. He couldn't stop the tears that welled in his eyes, unwelcome and certainly unappreciated. He turned his face into his bicep, barely keeping the hitching of his chest contained.

< | >

_Captain James Barnes looked at The Asset like he was long lost, but now found. His eyes were wet_ _, shining where the light caught._ _"Steve," he pleaded. His voice broke. The Asset thought, that whoever 'Steve' was, he must have been important. "Please, don't do this. Millions of people are going to die."_

_The Asset just lowered his chin, looking straight into the tortured eyes of his enemy._

_"Don't make me do this. Please. You remembered me, out on the highway - Steve, you_ have _to_ _remember_ _me."_

_After a few moments, the good Captain swore under his breath, and launched his shield at the Asset - who stuck out his metal arm on instinct, slapping the metal disc into the belly of the beast. He aimed his pistol at the Captain, who jumped off the side of the catwalk. The Asset turned when he_ _heard_ _a metallic thud behind him, but wasn't fast enough to dodge the kick to his right hand. The gun fell to their feet, and the Captain slid the toe of his boot under it and launched it up into the air between them. He caught it, and slid the barrel into an empty holster on his hip. He punched the_ _Soldier_ _in the throat, his left hand_ _unclipping a pouch on his belt._

_The Asset_ _lunged and locked his metal fingers around the Captain's wrist, yanking_ _his_ _arm. A green chip flew from his hand, over the railing of the catwalk. The Captain cursed again, and moved quickly - he looped his caught wrist around The Asset's head, let his feet go out_ _from_ _under him and_ _pulled_ _them both down. He twisted, midair, and slammed his knees into the Soldier's side, his kidney._

_The Captain jumped up and launched himself off the catwalk, sliding down the grey piece underneath them, branching from the center of the helicarrier. The Winter Soldier pushed_ _hi_ _mself up_ _and followed, landing on his feet as the Captain's hand closed around the green and gold chip._

_The Asset was precise,_ _trying_ _to get the chip got himself. But the Captain was persistent. The Captain_ _tumbled_ _over the edge of the center piece after he had redirected one of the Asset's long knives into a leather-clad shoulder. He pulled the knife out, immediately felt the wound beginning to close, and followed into the glass underbelly of the helicarrier. The Asset was quick to wrap his arms around the Captain's throat and his leg around his left arm, pulling his windpipe closed and bending the arm in a way it shouldn't._

_"Drop it!" he snarled into the Captain's ear -_ reciprocation. The Captain - Bucky? - had done the same thing on the highway.

Who the hell was Bucky?

_When the Captain didn't drop the chip, the Asset broke his arm at the elbow. The scream that exploded from him made The Asset sick to_ _his_ _stomach, and he had to let him go._

**Escape the cause for damage.**

**Do not let them find your weakness.**

**The Winter Soldier does not have a weakness.**

_The Captain immediately spun himself around, and suddenly his boot was meeting the Asset's face, knocking him flat onto his back, spotting black dots across his vision._

_When the Soldier's_ _vision_ _cleared, the Captain was pulling himself up beyond the center piece, using his one arm to get back to the catwalk, the center mechanism, the target system, where he had to plant the chip._

**Protect the helicarrier. Project Insight must be completed. Any threat to HYDRA is a threat to you.**

_The Asset pulled a new gun from a holster, taking aim. His bullets met the Captain's shoulder and thigh. He watched the threat falter, stumbling, but he kept going. He pulled himself up onto the catwalk with his one functional arm._

_"Stand by. Charlie -"_

_The Soldier shot again, his bullet meeting the Captain's abdomen. When he crumpled to his knees, he didn't feel the satisfaction he was_ _trained_ _to - he got the mission done, therefore he did good in the eyes of his handlers._

_His mission was to protect Project Insight, to kill Captain James Barnes and the defected Black Widow Natalia Romanova._

_But, for some odd reason, seeing the Captain covered in blood, hearing him make sounds of pain, made him sick. Like he couldn't bear to see James Barnes hurt._

Bucky Barnes couldn't be hurt. Not again.

_"Charlie locked."_

_The Asset_ _internally_ _cringed, a sudden, crippling fear coursing through him._

_He failed._

_"..._ _Fire now." One of the voices from the_ _earpiece_ _chirped, and James Barnes insisted louder, "_ _Hill, as part of the founding, I'm ordering you to_ fire now! _"_

_The Asset turned to look at one of the other_ _hellicarriers_ _through the glass bowl. As he did, red and orange bloomed from the redirected guns._

_Coming right at him._

_Fire rained down on them, tearing_ _apart_ _the_ _machine. He stepped out of the way of a fallen pillar_ _, only to get hit by another piece of debris and get knocked onto_ _his_ _back._

_James Barnes_ _leapt off the catwalk, stumbling when he landed. Pain was etched_ _deep into his expression, his molars clenched tightly and his cheeks flushed red. His eyes were a sharp, pale shade of blue, but they looked shadowed as they determinedly stared the Soldier down. His voice was strained, thick with pain and emotion, when he said, "Steve,_ please. _I didn't know -_ I'm so sorry. _" He inhaled deeply, his breath hitching in his throat. He exhaled, and set unwavering eyes on him. "You know me."_

_"You're James Barnes," the Asset found himself saying, pushing himself to his feet. "Captain America."_

_His mouth was tugged on by an_ _invisible_ _force, twisting into a frown. "Yeah. And you're Steve Rogers. You aren't HYDRA's experiment."_

_Experiment? No -_

Arnim Zola stared down at him, as a mechanic tinkered with the wires inside the new arm. Steve panted, head turned away from the ruin of his left shoulder.

They left him awake when they began to saw through his broken bone. He vomited over his chest and passed out. When he woke up, the stump was gone, and metal replaced what was once flesh and blood.

He hated it.

"It's almost poetic, isn't it?" Zola mused. "That you saved your Sergeant Barnes, and replaced him as he replaced you."

"What?" he breathed, voice hoarse from strain. He'd screamed, he'd cried - he did everything his body as capable of

"Your Sergeant was promoted to Captain."

The words spiraled in his head. Captain? Bucky was a Captain? Why -

The truth hit him like that glass window he had barreled through right after getting the serum.

Oh.

Bucky took the shield.

"Your Sergeant was venomous," the scientist droned. "Has he always been so...angry?"

He found it in himself to narrow his eyes into a glare. "Only when he gets tortured by a nazi."

A wire tugged in his shoulder, sending a searing-hot jolt down his strapped-down abdomen. His eyes instinctively squeezed shut and he swore behind clenched teeth.

"Well, it's too bad. He was named missing in action." A thin newspaper landed on Steve's chest, but he couldn't move to read it even if he wanted to. "Presumed dead."

_The Asset stumbled back, his head pounding like a drum. He - the Winter Soldier didn't have memories. Machines didn't have memories._

_"Steve, you know me."_

_Fury washed through him. He didn't know a thing, but all he could think of was warm, reassuring smiles and soft kisses, boisterous laughter and a strong arm thrown over his thin shoulders._

_The Asset lashed out, leaping forward and planting a boot in James Barnes's stomach. He stumbled away,_ _tripping_ _over the heel of his boot. The monster deep inside the Asset screeched, "No, I don't!" and threw his metal fist at his face._

_The Captain gasped when he landed on the glass, the water beneath them coming closer and closer as the helicarrier was being torn apart. "Y_ _o_ _u've known me your whole life -"_

_His fist met his jaw, and the crown of his head hit the glass hard enough to crack it. His skull bounced off._

_But, the most confusing part, was he just laid there and take it. He stared up at the Asset with a deep trust he just couldn't understand._

_He went on, his voice barely existent, so weak. But he remained determined, for something the Asset_ _wasn't sure_ _of; "_ _You were four years old._ _" He flinched back with the punch, but pushed on. "_ _Steve, your mother - Sarah Rogers didn't raise a monster, she raised a fucking_ _saint!"_

A fair woman smiled at him, though her eyes were lined with undeniable worry. She gave in, hands planted firmly on her hips and her chin dropped in a lecture. "Fine. But you boys better stay safe. Bucky, if he gets in the water on your watch -"

"Yeah, yeah, my head will go on the wall above your bed." Bucky smirked, and looped an arm around Steve's neck, pulling him in close. "It's gonna be fine, Miss Sarah."

 _His fist hovered in the air,_ _dropping_ _with each frantic breath he released._ _Bucky_ -

This was Bucky. _He realized that with a swoop of nausea deep in_ _his_ _gut. This was Bucky, in all his glory. He was a saviour, never a victim. When they stumbled out of the burning_ _wreckage_ _of Azzano, he held his head high in front of his men. He was always so beautiful - and look at what the Soldier did. Marred his face with splits and cuts, blotted red and blue over smooth, dark olive._

 _At his hesitation, Bucky whispered, "_ _I'm not gonna fight you. I can't. Steve,_ _I_ _can't do this anymore -_ _"_

" _You're my mission_ _," he insisted, attempting to assure himself. This wasn't Bucky. Bucky died so long ago, Zola read the paper to him. But he saw dark forests, leaving a shivering man in a Captain America uniform for dead. He shook himself, holding a fistful of the dark blue, canvas jacket this man wore. His fingers tightened and his fist raised back into the air, his lips curling as a bitter, angry taste filled his mouth._ How dare this man pretend to be Bucky? _"_ _You're my mission_ _!"_

_"Then finish it!" he shouted back at him. He then let out an exhale that made his whole body tremble underneath the body that must have once belonged to Steve Rogers, and said, softly with a quiver in his voice, as a few_ _wayward_ _tears streamed down his face, "You've never finished it." He pulled the gun from his holster and pushed the magazine into The Soldier's - Steve's - hovering, hesitating hand, pulling the other from his collar to bring it to the gun. Once his fingers, flesh and metal, had locked around the handle, Bucky covered his scarred hands with his own and pulled the gun forward, so the barrel rested_ _against his forehead. "Finish it._ _I'm_ _right here, baby, it's okay. Just finish it."_

Steve snapped awake, a gasp scraping through his dry throat. His fists clutched the blanket and the end of his pillowcase, his skin clammy from a nervous sweat.

He rolled out of bed and stood on shaking legs, stumbled his way to the bathroom. He clenched his hands around the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening against the black and white marble.

His reflection stared back at him, a ghost compared to the lively youth he had once been. His eyes were bloodshot from tears, seemingly sunken into the sockets by the dark pools of purple underneath them. His skin seemed translucent under the bathroom lighting, the strands of red and blue snaking under his pale complexion.

He dropped his head, staring down at the rounded sink. Thin, dark little strands poked out from the drain, twitching. Steve didn't react as a little rounded body came out from under the stopper, eight spindly legs holding it up.

Steve could deal with spiders. He'd stared up into the corners of his cell enough times to just let them go about their business. At one point in his life, if they came near him, they had crossed the line, and Bucky had to take charge of getting it outside.

But now they just reminded him of loneliness, and Peter.

Steve turned away from the sink and flicked off the light before leaving the bathroom, crossing the living room to the kitchen directly beside the front door. About five minutes later, he settled down on the couch with a mug of instant cocoa, wrapped an old quilt around his legs and cradled the warmth from the drink in his palms.

He felt gigantic. Maybe that was an understatement, but he had no idea what else he could have said. He was too big for the world, for the life he wanted. He towered over each and every crowd, his shoulders knocked into others, he couldn't really fold his legs in on himself. His own mother wouldn't recognize him, and he hated that.

The very thought of Sarah Rogers had him on the edge, his heart swelling with sorrow and grief. He lost her too soon. He probably would have never raised hell just to follow Bucky if she had been there.

He couldn't help but wonder what she would say if she knew how he tore out throats and broke skulls, taught little girls how to kill quick and easy, drawn-out and painful, acting with purpose and grace. She would be appalled, he knew that. But would she be like Bucky and accept him in welcoming arms? Or would she have a rational head on her shoulders and not let him anywhere near her? When he couldn't sleep, when he was left tossing and turning, he couldn't help the wave of thoughts that crashed through his head. One of them was what he would do to get a hug from his ma. His eyes would fill with tears, he would push his face into the pillow that had long-ago stopped smelling like Bucky, and try to think of _anything_ else.

There were so many things he hadn't thought about before agreeing to Project Rebirth. So many things that died with Abraham. But he saved Bucky, he rescued him from being Zola's Soldier, he fell into HYDRA's hands so Bucky wouldn't. He wouldn't ever want to change a thing, because of that. If it meant Bucky was safe, Steve would walk through the land of death, look Alveus in the eyes and house the ancient god Zola would ramble on and on about, that Malick would preach of in that gasping, gravely voice that made Steve's veins itch in discomfort.

One thing that had startled him when he realized, during the Howlies' scour through warzones in Europe, he and Bucky's stay in Wakanda - he was too big to fold perfectly into Bucky's arms. He used to be so tiny, so thin, Bucky would frame his waist with his hands, and his thumbs and pointer fingers would meet. They knew it wasn't good, but there was nothing to be done. Besides, Steve liked being smothered by his partner's bulk. Bucky made him feel so safe and completed, he wasn't happier anywhere but wrapped up in his arms and pulled flush against his firm chest.

Maybe that was why he was so lonely, despite Natasha's historical presence in the compound and the closest feeling of family that radiated from Chrys;

He just wanted an embrace that reminded him of a home he could never get back.

< | >

When Steve stepped out of therapy, Faith by his side, he was surprised to find Carol Danvers waiting for him. Her golden hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her hands buried in the pockets of her denim jacket. Her red, blue, and gold trousers were tucked under crimson, comfortable looking leather boots.

He quickly apologized to Faith for having to skip their lunch date, but she waved off his concerns and wished him a good week until she would see him again the next. Once she disappeared, Steve made his way to where Carol waited, leaning against a metal sign post.

Last they had seen each other, Thanos had crushed their hopes and had been decapitated. A year had passed. It was good seeing her again. He had liked what little he had seen of her.

"Natasha told me you'd be here," she supplied before he could ask, pushing herself away from the sign. With a calculating look; "How have you been?"

"Angry," he said, truthfully, "but making it work. You?"

"Making sure the galaxy is stable. There's still a lot of uproar from the Decimation. Governments are being overthrown, civil wars keep breaking out." She shrugged. "Sadly, other planets don't have you guys to help them."

He nodded, not sure what to say. "So, are you taking a break, or what?"

She smirked. "I figured it was time to come talk to my childhood hero." She jerked her head to the side, gesturing to the street. "Walk with me?"

They made idle small talk as they made their way to a coffee shop, that was too modern for Steve's tastes but had an aura of peace that he enjoyed. Barely ten minutes later, they walked out with matching to-go cups, a mocha for him and a caramel latte for her.

Carol gulped down a mouthful of coffee, sighing in satisfaction as the warmth bled into her bones. It seemed to give her courage, because she finally spoke up. "You two were - awesome, to say the least."

He frowned. "'Awesome'?"

"From one Captain to another. I grew up with the hype of Captain America. I saw myself in the stories. In love with your best friend, constantly told you weren't good enough. But I became one of the best pilots the airforce had ever seen. Despite their efforts to push us down, we always got back up." She cocked her head to the side, and added, thoughtfully, "And brianwashing."

He scoffed. "Well, we can't forget the brainwashing."

 _Say that again_.

"Your best friend...Is she -?"

"She didn't survive the snap," she said, not looking at him - instead, she peered at a couple walking on the other side of the street, hand in hand, smiles on their faces. "It's nice that people are learning to live again."

< | >

Steve caught the tumbling shoebox against his cheek, flinching to the side at the unexpected impact. He fixed his hand around two of its bent edges and lowered it to his hip level to let it fall safely to the floor. He returned to his task of pulling the file box out from the top of the closet, and finished it without anything else falling on him.

After getting the box to Nat - who thanked him profusely before running out toward the conference rooms - Steve sat down with the worn, cracked, blank shoe box.

When he pulled off the lid, he was surprised to find over a dozen square envelopes, all under different names for he, Peggy, Nat - and, unexpectedly, one for Luke.

This was the first time he had found something meant for Peggy. He'd come across a small bundle of old photos once, and when he flipped through he had found it to be Bucky and Peggy's wedding pictures. Peggy, done up in her lace dress and smiling dark lips, Bucky dressed to the nines in a neat military uniform, medals and pins pressed to the chest and lapels. They smiled at each other like no one else was watching, Bucky's hands cradling Peggy's strong chin when they leaned close to seal the deal with a kiss.

Steve had put the photo album away, but he let it remain.

He picked up one of his own letters, sliding his fingertip under the gap in the seal, and ripped it open.

_**Steve,**_

_**The war was a monster, in a way only men on the front lines truly knew. It ate me up and spit me back out. I wasn't the only one, but it always felt like I was alone in** _ _**it.**_

_**I'm** _ _**toughing this winter out. I'm sitting on the front porch, my hand** _ _**numb** _ _**around the pen and my eyes mostly on my kids. My daughter just slipped and is getting back up to push her brother. They're like little baby penguins, waddling around in their winter gear.**_

_**I want to be out in the yard with them. But even breathing in the air is hard. The war ruined one of the most beautiful seasons - where everything is** _ _**frozen and** _ _**unique. Where** _ _**everything** _ _**but your** _ _**nasty** _ _**colds were beautiful.**_

_**It's either I see you falling all over again, or** _ _**I'm** _ _**drowning.** _ _**I can't decide which is worse. I want to say drowning.**_

_**I've never told** _ _**anyone** _ _**that** _ _**I** _ _**was awake for part of it. Drowning apparently isn't enough to kill us. Until** _ _**I** _ _**was completely frozen,** _ _**I** _ _**was in and out of consciousness. Maybe that's** _ _**why I** _ _**hate** _ _**the cold so much,** _ _**because** _ _**it was the only thing** _ _**I** _ _**could feel in those moments of alertness.**_

_**Peggy's been great since the beginning. But things are changing. I'm not** _ _**sure** _ _**of what's happening, but there's** _ _**this** _ _**\- hostility, between us. I can't fall asleep beside her, she** _ _**turns** _ _**her back to me and it feels like there's this tower keeping us apart. I was at the top, everything was great, and for some** _ _**unknown** _ _**reason I was chucked off. The rock bottom is coming closer and closer, and it's -**_

_**She's not you. No one will ever be you. I could fall in love with dozens of people - and** _ _**I** _ _**would never love one of them the way I will always love you.**_

< | >

Steve didn't have to go to a full-blown court room for his trial. Instead, one of the security officers handcuffed him - fruitlessly - and led him to a private room where the judge and two attorneys were already seated.

He already knew one of them - his lawyer, a thin but sturdy man named Jordan Lane. They'd had multiple meetings over coffee; and if he was honest, Steve really trusted him.

The trial was horrible, Steve knew that. There was no jury, just one judge that could throw him into prison just because she had a bad day. They dug into the history of the Winter Soldier, of HYDRA. Jordan and the prosecutor debated over glossy images of evidence, until Judge Bishop would redirect them.

"I'd like to hear what Captain Rogers has to say," Judge Bishop interrupted, long after Steve's head had begun to ache and his chest had knotted up so tight that it would take a full day of sleep to get rid of this stress. She began to open the large yellow envelope that had been sitting on the table in front of her, untouchable by the lawyers. "This isn't an argument over child custody. I feel it is important to hear Captain Rogers speaking for himself, not through his attorney." Pulling out multiple letter envelopes, she went on; "The court reached out to witnesses. Mr. Lane notified people you are close with, for declarations of character. We recieved words from Kimberly Cheney, Patrick Wellson, Natasha Romanoff, Chrysanthemum Barnes, and Anthony Stark. Do any of those names sound unfamiliar?"

Steve replied, voice level, "Wellson."

"Then we'll start with him." With manicured nails, she peeled open an envelope, and pulled out the folded letter.

As she started to read, Steve began to remember. It had been a dark night in North Carolina. He'd hiked up a mountain in pitch-black, let himself into a large, expensive home. He killed Barney Wellson and his wife Judy. Their six year old son had seen him, but the Soldier had always refused to kill a young child with his hands.

 _Setting an orphanage to flames was a_ _different_ _story_ -

Steve closed his eyes and let his chin drop down to his chest.

"Caprain Rogers, do you remember pulling a gun on Barney Wellson, fifty six years old, and then Judy Wellson as soon as she woke up?"

"Yes," he murmured into the collar of Bucky's jacket.

"Do you remember why you left their child, Patrick Wellson, alive?"

"The Winter Soldier never left a witness. That's why the wife had...to go. But I refused to directly kill children. My handlers never knew that the kid saw me."

"Do you remember why Barney Wellson was a target?"

"I was always told the bare minimum. He was an enemy to HYDRA, and that was all there was to it."

The judge inclined her head. "Did HYDRA have a nationalistic approach to their manipulation of you?"

"In a way. Once I was a blank slate, they were able to mould me into whatever they wanted. They always told me that I was serving my country. And I believed them. I had nothing. Why wouldn't I?"

"And by 'blank slate,' you mean brainwashing. The electroconvulsive therapy that Captain Barnes went through in Azzano."

"They had this mechanism. Metal would surround your head, and they would fry your brain."

Jordan spoke up when Steve failed to go on; "On a normal human, this mechanism would have been deadly. But on a supersoldier, it caused amnesia. Over time, with the enhanced cell growth, the pathways in the brain begin to reform, which is their memories coming back. The 'wiping,' as mentioned in multiple files released during Project Insight, was involved heavily in the Winter Soldier's routine."

The trial went on. Kimberly's letter made Steve's eyes well with tears. That woman would always have a sheltered place in his heart, he would always be thankful for what she did for him. Chrys's letter was heartwrenching. She wrote of the hero she had always grown up hearing about, how she and her siblings were proud to know Steve Rogers as Uncle Steve, then as something close to another father.

 _"'I got to know Steve as he stood alongside by father, before the Accords kept them out of the country. He is a gentle, honest man, torn down by his trauma. I've also gotten to know him without my father._ _He is_ _everything_ _my father once told me about - from his anger at injustices to the way he cared for his art._ _He remains to be one of the best men I have ever met, and I feel honored that Steve_ _Rogers_ _is my family. Without him, I would be alone in the graveyard we now call the world._ '" The judge paused, to let that conclusion sink in and to refold the paper. She then asked, "Captain Rogers, can you tell us what happened the day of the UN bombing?"

"Peggy Carter's funeral was that day. Bucky, Sam Wilson, and I attended. It just so happened that the rest of the Avengers were in the same city, getting ready to sign the Accords, but none of us wanted anything to do with that. After the funeral, Buck and I got lunch with family - his daughters and grandkids. Everything was fine. I got up to use the bathroom, and in passing I saw the news of the UN bombing, how it was done by Captain James Barnes and that he was being taken dead or alive. I got back to him, told him we had to go, but the British Ops forces flooded the place. The king of Wakanda broke through the window, then James Rhodes came and got everything settled. Bucky was taken in, and the next time I saw him he was his own Winter Soldier."

"Describe what you mean, by 'his own Winter Soldier.'"

"He told me about it, once he was in his own head. Helmut Zemo had taken the place of the psychiatrist for Bucky's evaluation. He told Buck how Arnim Zola had gotten partway through his Winter Soldier programming, in Azzano. He had his own codewords, because Zola had meant for him to be the Soldier. Zemo tried to use him to tear the Avengers apart...It worked."

Natasha's letter was what he expected - explaining her childhood, and the role the Winter Soldier had played in it. But she also recounted how she watched him turn into Steve Rogers, a kind man whom her ally trusted more than anyone else.

The judge tore open Tony's envelope. His words sunk deep into Steve's bones, and when the handcuffs came off his wrists hours later, he knew there was somewhere he needed to be.

The cabin was gigantic, surrounded only by trees and a pond. The slow, rising sun created a gorgeous reflection over the water, and Steve had to force himself to put his back to it - and the itching desire to paint it - as he walked up the cabin's porch steps. He knocked, before he could convince himself better of it. Barely a minute later, the door swing open and Tony Stark just stared at him, holding a bundled baby in his arms.

Neither of them could tear their eyes off the other. Tony eventually called deeper into the house, "Hey, Pep, I'll be back," and pushed the screen door open as she stepped out. He let it go once he was out of the way, and the pressure rod keeping it from blowing into the side of the house pulled it back shut.

"What's her name?" Steve asked, to break the ice. It had been years since he last spoke to Tony Stark. He yelled at all of them for leaving him behind while they killed Thanos, and then left later that day with Pepper and never returned.

He turned his eyes down to the baby, and his calculating eyes softened into something Steve recognized from his own mother, or Winifred when she looked at her children. "Morgan," he answered, slowly dropping down into a whicker chair.

He leaned against the wooden railing, a small smile on his face. "She's beautiful, Tony."

"Yeah, well, she's got Pepper's genes..." The mechanic turned his eyes back up to him. "How did your little trial go?"

"Acquitted on the lines of manipulation, clear signs of abuse, and a letter from the VA declaring me in their care as a veteran and longest-surviving POW...That's why I'm here, actually...I wanted to thank you for sending that letter in. You really helped me, back there." He dropped his chin, scuffing one heel against the wooden porch. "I can't thank you enough for that."

"Yeah. Don't mention it."

The door creaked, and both men turned to look at Pepper as she stepped out onto the porch. She gave Steve a soft smile as she came closer. "Hey, Steve."

"Hey. It's nice to see you. Been a while." The timing made sense. It had been almost two years since he last saw her. She must have decided to work from home when she got pregnant, he guessed.

She turned to Tony, and started forward with her hands outstretched. "I'm going to take her," she slid her fingers under Morgan's tired body, and pulled her up to rest her head on her own shoulder, "and you two are going to go to the garage."

"Pep, I miss her already, give her back," Tony pleaded, holding his hands up.

Pepper stepped away, avoiding the advancements. "You two need to talk. Food's almost ready. Come back when you're done."

Steve turned his eyes back to Tony, looking away before Pepper disappeared back into the large cabin. The other man huffed, and pushed himself out of the chair. He grumbled, "Come on," before starting off toward the porch steps.

Steve silently followed him to the garage, a wooden shed that was much bigger on the inside than it seemed on the outside. Tony immediately turned on the overhead lights and opened a white refrigerator. He pulled out two bottles of Bud Light, and held one of them up in question.

Steve shrugged. "Might as well."

Tony tossed the bottle to him, and closed the door. Steve caught the body of it between his palms, just as Tony said, "Pepper thinks I need closure."

"I think a lot of people need that, lately." He opened the beer against the corner of a wooden workbench. The cap popped off, and he bent down to pick it up and slide it into his jacket pocket. "For the record, I'm sorry for tearing your family apart. In more ways than one."

Steve had never spoken much to Tony. He was able to count their encounters on his fingers. Siberia was, by far, the most profound direct encounter. One of the runner ups had to be when they spoke to each other in London after the bombing, while Steve was being indirectly detained and no one knew Bucky was being taken advantage of. When Tony indirectly tried to get him to sign for himself and Bucky.

But knowing what he did about Bucky and Tony, he had been floored by the fact Secretary Ross would pit them against each other. That they would give in, farther than either of them thought they would, than either of them were prepared for. They went from a father-and-son dynamic to arguing in an airport, fighting tooth and nail in Siberia.

Tony shrugged. "Way back when, you got to know Howard, a man of the people. I had Mr. Stark, who told me I had to be better than Captain America." He tipped his beer back before going on. "My old man was absent, in more ways than one. But Bucky? I grew up with him around, before Peg tossed finally tossed him out on his ass and he went all nomadic. He would be the one to make an effort for me. He went to my horrible kindergarten choir concert, he came in for the Bring Your Dad days, he told me he was proud of me; he did everything my dad should have done. He was the only person besides my mother that told me they loved me. That made me look up to him. He had his own kids, he had S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Army breathing down his neck, but he always did his best to make time for me. And that made me listen to my dad. I wanted to be like him, even though the idea of him was made into something horrible." He pointed toward the cabin with his free hand. "That little girl in there? I can't disappoint her, I can't be my dad. She's my world. I can't ever lose her."

"You shouldn't have to," he murmured, "if you're anything like the father Bucky was."

He suddenly huffed, and set his bottle down on a small section of free space on another workbench. He started toward the other side of the garage, where sheets of metal and screen were leaned up against the wall. As he walked, sideways with his eyes turned away from his destination, he said, "Resentment's corrosive." Tony let the words hang between them, heavy and unbounded. When Steve failed to reply, he added, "I hate it."

Softly, he agreed, "Me, too."

He stopped beside the mounds of scrap materials, and pulled something out from behind them. The shield sparkled under the overhead lights, polished and buffed. It was nothing compared to the dirty, clawed thing it had been when Bucky had dropped it to their feet in Siberia, when he left the title of Captain America behind and became the Nomad again.

Steve immediately balked, slowly shaking his head in dismay as Tony started toward him. "I can't - Tony, I can't take that."

"Why? It's yours. My dad made it for you. Bucky carried it for you."

After moments of hesitation, he set his palm on the edge of the shield, between Tony's eager hands. He slid his right arm through the handles on the domed underside.

Once it was fit into place, Tony let go and stepped back. "You look good, Robocop," he said, tilting his head in consideration as he took the image in.

Steve inhaled deeply. It felt weird to have it on his arm again. He had picked it up before, when he wasn't the Winter Soldier or Captain America, just Steve Rogers trying to become a man again instead of a weapon. He had fought with it in Siberia, catching it when Bucky would fling it at Tony's suit and it would ricochet off, passing it back when Bucky needed it. But he hadn't donned it since he fell of the train, not like Bucky did.

Tony added, "I don't have anything for Romanoff, but we don't have to tell her that. Our secret." He paused, and pulled a rusted pair of pliers from a holder on the wall. He fiddled with the tool. "How is...everyone?"

"Nat is...Nat, I guess. We had to put Alpine down a couple months ago and Liho was taken in the snap, so...She's focusing on finding Clint and making sure I get to therapy."

Tony frowned. "Therapy? Thought you were old fasioned."

"Tony, how am I old fashioned? I was a gay man in -"

"Ew, no, don't get into it. Just..." He shrugged. "Buck never got any of the help he _clearly_ needed. I never got it, either. None of us did, besides maybe Sam, but that was his job so it didn't really count...It's good that you're trying."

Therapy wasn't perfect. Steve knew that. The hospital had done what it could for him, got him to a stable point where he was able to take his recovery into his own hands. He wasn't going to pretend that he only took steps forward. No, he fell miles back multiple times, tripped over metaphorical potholes and drowned in imaginary seas of agony. The world wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, he wasn't ever going to force himself to think that. But he had to look at the things that were good, and focus on them. He focused on regaining his memories and getting to know Bucky again, listening to his stories and meeting the additions to the Barnes family he hadn't been able to before. The nightmares were always going to be there. He was always going to scope out possible exits, everyday items that could be used as weapons if need be, look over his shoulder for enemies. It was just a part of his life as an abused soldier.

Therapy wasn't the answer to everything, but it was better than nothing. Especially now, when it felt like all the good had been taken away from him in the snap.

He shrugged. "It's better than nothing. One of the girls I knew from the hospital goes, so it's nice seeing her again. We go and get lunch after most meetings."

"That's nice. I'm glad." They both glanced toward the house when a sharp whistle met their ears. Tony turned back to Steve, blindly setting the pliers on the work table. "You want to join us? We always have leftovers, so it's not like we don't have enough. And you'll get to see the hour long process of feeding Morgoona, which is always the main event of the day."

Steve smiled, ducking his head. "Yeah, Tony." He raised his head again, meeting the other man's eyes. "I'd love to."


	2. 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE, PLEASE READ
> 
> 1: Sorry that the wait was so long! I finished school, had some had mental health days, and got into roleplaying on the Amino app (Stucky Amino, if anyone else is there!) to try and help my writer's block. (This chapter is written so badly, in my opinion, so I am apologizing from the very bottom of my heart.)
> 
> 2: What's happening in the world right now is really scary, but way past due. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and a member of society that looks white but isn't racially, I am happy to share my pride month with black Americans. Pride began as a riot. Women got their rights through riots. Riots make change.
> 
> 3: Speaking of that - I went to a peaceful protest in my town today. One of the scenes you will read in this chapter is heavily inspired by that. That scene is one of the only reasons I'm posting this now.
> 
> 4: This marks the end of Part Three! Part Four is next, and hopefully I can actually learn to write Steve's POV XD There's a reason I don't. I actually kind of regret not ending this series at Part Two. But hey, here we are! (I'll be posting Part Four right now, and the first chapter will be a placeholder until I get the chapter done. It's being written. Parts of it are done.)
> 
> 5: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH! BE SAFE AT PROTESTS IF YOU'RE GOING TO ANY! KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (WHITE FOLKS, KNOW YOUR PLACE. THIS IS NOT YOUR FIGHT, YOU ARE ALLIES AND SUPPORT. YOU ARE THERE TO HELP, NOT DOMINATE.)

**| 2020 |**

It was tradition within the Avengers - Bucky, Clint, and Nat - to watch The Crow on Halloween. Steve and Nat had stuck with it after the Decimation and Clint going off the grid. After watching it so much, Steve was able to sink into the couch cushion, recline his head back, and just listen as Eric Draven went to his apartment after coming back to life, and The Cure's 'Burn' filling the lounge. Nat had her legs thrown over him, a bowl of sweet M&M's and buttery popcorn in her lap.

They were in the middle of nowhere, so they didn't have to worry about random trick or treaters. But a hologram jumped out at them, projected from the television. The Crow instantly paused, and Nat sat forward in interest.

An image from the front parking lot popped up on the hologram, showing a man - that Steve only knew from pictures and vague information - standing at the doors. Luke waved at the surveillance camera, brows drawn together and mouth tightly pursed.

Nat was immediately on her feet, the bowl of popcorn and chocolate forgotten. Steve haphazardly unraveled the gigantic fleece blanket he had tangled himself in, following in her wake.

The air outside was cool, leaving a slight chill on Steve's forever-pale skin. He found Natasha pulling back from an embrace with the other soldier, softly noting, "It's been a while."

Luke smiled at her, warm and friendly. He glanced over at Steve, and the smile flickered just a little - enough to notice it. Returning his eyes to Natasha, he said, "Yeah. I only got leave after the whole Accords thing went down. But," he clapped his hands together and clasped his palms, "the war ended, which would be awesome if it wasn't because half the population vanished. Silver lining, right?"

Natasha just gestured toward the door they had come out from. "We're watching The Crow. Feel like joining the party?"

Luke smiled, tucking his hands under his arms. "Yeah, I'd love to. But..." His gaze turned toward Steve, and Steve realized that the other man was hesitant and waiting for his approval.

He immediately nodded his head. "Yeah," he reassured him. There was an obvious line of tension between them, not too unlike Steve and Natasha near the very beginning of Steve's recovery. "We're happy to have you."

Those polaroids had done their best at committing the exact details of Luke's smiles. Steve gave them credit for it - but they just hadn't been able to fully capture how genuine and bright they were.

< | >

Steve was tired. Not just from the sore aches tugged at his joints, the dark circles under his eyes, in sheer inability to get a good night of sleep; but from the rainy cloud that hovered over his head. Time wore at him. He knew that the two centuries he had lived in were different...but sometimes, he just couldn't see it.

He had been able to see Clint - in leather and a mask, sheathed katanas strapped to his back. Covered in splattered blood, anger in his eyes.

Left in his wake - a dead police officer.

Steve was curled up in the little bench in the cockpit, to the very side of the pilot's chair. He had one leg splayed out in front of him, the other pulled up to his chest with his arms hugging it, the heel against the seat. He had his chin set on his knee as he stared out of the pane of glass, the silence beginning to lull him to sleep.

Natasha pushed his shoulder, and Steve made a squeaking groan sound as he startled back to attention. She was standing in front of him, and said, "We're in Ohio. Could've gone on, but you need to eat something before you crash," referring to the amount of calories he needed a day, accelerated alongside his cell growth. With a slight curl to the corner of her mouth, she added, dryly, "Can't have you dying on me."

Steve followed her out of the plane, having changed into civilian clothes once they left California. His navy blue and military green button down was a little tight around the arms, but he didn't mind. Bucky's jacket was warm, a little more so under the sun, but the chilled air kept his temperature at a nice level.

Of course, it could have helped that he was always cold.

Natasha had put the plane down at the very top of a parking garage. They silently meandered down, intent on the goal for food. When they got down all the levels, they immediately found a little parking lot, and a Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon mural.

Steve could only smile at it. He knew it was June first. Chrys planned on taking him to some festivals, if nothing got in the way. If he wasn't quite sure of what to think of it - that gay people had a community, and they were mostly accepted and somewhat protected by the law. It sparked a joy in him, to be able to bear witness to it. Once upon a time, he and Bucky weren't able to imagine it. Now they were LGBT icons. It was surreal, to say the least.

As they found a main side street, Steve was able to hear the chanting.

" _Hands up!_ "

" _Don't shoot!_ "

Immediately, he and Natasha's brows both drew in, in confusion. They continued on in their direction toward the main street, until they got to the corner. A short bank towered over them, two cops sitting on a small brick wall. The men redirected their gaze from across the street, their eyes widening when they landed on two Avengers.

When the traffic continued, Steve was able to see it; a crowd, made up of a majority of young people - mid to early twenties, college, high school - in front of a building that must have been the courthouse, holding up signs ( _Black Lives Matter, Justice for George Floyd, I Can't Breathe, plus so many more)_ and raising their voices;

"What's his name?" a sole person shouted, voice begging to go hoarse.

" _George Floyd!_ " the crowd answered.

"What did he say?"

" _I can't breathe!_ "

Steve didn't hesitate to rush through the traffic, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a truck with a three-by-five Trump-Pence flag waving off the very back. The crowd cheered when they spotted him, Natasha quick to rush at his heels.

Questions and statements were immediately thrown at him, but Steve couldn't focus on any of it. He was too focused on his confusion, and trying to get an answer. Who was George Floyd? Why was there a protest going on in a small town in the middle of farmland?

Speaking over them, Steve asked, "What happened?"

A young black girl immediately got in his face, eyes lit up with cold fire and a white posterboard in a tight hand. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Are you seriously surprised? Captain America's supposed to be the system's Golden Boy!"

He was taken aback. Corporations tried to use Captain America as the face of unjust morals, but Bucky always took charge of his own image.

"What?" he exclaimed. His heart was racing, for a reason he wasn't too sure of. Cars kept honking as they passed, motorcycles revving.

Natasha stepped in. "We've been on a mission for over a week. We don't know what's been going on."

The high schooler in front of Steve stepped away, but she still looked angry. Someone yelled from their car, and Steve turned his head just in time to see a burly man flip up his middle finger.

At a _high schooler_.

Something was really wrong. He could feel it in his tight chest, in his sinking gut. He turned back to the crowd, eyes uncontrollably wide.

"Hey, hey!" the girl shouted.

"Ho, ho!" another high schooler continued, his salt and pepper hair tucked under a ball cap, his winter-paled biceps gradually turning red under the sun.

" _These racist cops have got to go!_ "

Finally, someone answered, as the group continued with their chants. A woman wearing sunglasses broke it down for the two Avengers; and suddenly, everything made sense. And Steve could believe it - that's part of what made the whole thing so upsetting.

There was no shock to it.

**| 2021 |**

"Steve? You've been staring at those for over an hour."

He looked up to meet Carol's worried eyes, and immediately frowned down at the sketchbook, at the polaroids and pieces of paper that were spread out around him.

His friend pushed herself up off the couch, not bothering to pause her movie as she walked toward him. Sitting down at the very food of the bed, she picked up an old polaroid of Ellie and Jessie. "Good looking family," she said, almost absently, setting the picture back down.

Steve stacked up the lined paper, the polaroids, stuffing them back inside and setting the sketchbook on the end table before getting up. He walked with a sudden hysteric purpose toward the closet, which he threw open, and just stared into.

"Steve?" Carol set her hand on his shoulder. "You're worrying me."

He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't leave things exactly the way Bucky had left them. Couldn't keep wearing his pajamas or staring at that sketchbook.

It had gotten past the point of coping. It had long been desperate.

He pulled out the few Captain America suits that had been shoved to the very back. Steve had thrown out Bucky's muted presentation/stealth suit during the BLM protests last year, how he had known Bucky wanted to after the color scheme got mistaken for the Thin Blue Line and the World Security Council had forced him to continue wearing it.

He deposited the suits on the cleared bed, turning back in search for more. Carol sidestepped him when he moved back toward the open closet, demanding, "Dude, what the hell?"

"Help or get out," he snapped.

So she kept her mouth shut - beyond simple questions - and helped him pack of up Bucky's things. His clothes, his personal items. They tore down the picture wall, put them in a box with the sketchbook tucked into the very bottom.

The next day, Steve showed up at Chrys's with a rented U-Haul. Her boyfriend, Henry, answered the door, immediately giving Steve a sympathetic smile and calling over his shoulder for Chrys. When she came to the door and saw Steve holding a box labeled _Photos + Sketchbook_ , she pulled the box out of his hands, handed it to Henry, and folded him in his arms.

The three of them moved the boxes into the basement, where Steve spotted a dusty Candy Land box and a box of photo albums and reels. On instinct, he scooped up the board game, and they played before Steve had to leave.

After joining the couple for dinner - lasagna, Henry's late great-grandmother's family recipe - and bidding them goodbye, Steve fell onto the bed, arms stretched out at his sides, watering eyes focused on the ceiling.

It had to be done. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

It was time.

**| 2022 |**

_Bucky sat in the_ _little_ _fire pit_ _outside_ _of_ _their_ _Wakandan cabin, legs straddling the log. Half of his hair was pulled out, the back still hanging over the back of his neck._

_Not looking away from the sunrise over the lake, he said, seemingly calmly, "It seems...infinite, doesn't it? Like the memories go on forever...Like it's never going to stop."_

_Steve was_ _sitting_ _on the flattened_ _grass_ _in front of the log, leaning back against it so he_ _could_ _see Bucky and the skyline, their goat Suzie splayed_ _out_ _in his lap. Running his fingers over her soft flank, he asked, "Do you want it to stop?"_

_It took Bucky a minute to respond. "Maybe. At one point,_ _I_ _was sure I did. But now that you're back...I have no idea what_ _I_ _want out of my life. I feel like_ _I've_ _seen everything."_

_Steve forced himself to crack a smile. "I feel like you haven't seen everything."_

_Bucky didn't_ _seem_ _to notice Steve's humorous tone. "It feels like it."_

_Steve reached up and across his chest with his one hand, tracing his_ _fingertips_ _over_ _Bucky's cheek. He finally broke his gaze away from the skyline, leaning his face into Steve's knuckles. He turned his head, pressing soft kisses to them._

_"_ _I'm_ _glad you're back, Stevie," he whispered, bringing a hand up to cradle Steve's, taking a moment to wind their fingers together._

The scene faded, and Steve found himself mumbling into his pillow, "I'm glad you're back, too."

**| 2023 |**

The second Steve stepped out of the car, Morgan began to wriggle in Tony's arms, exclaiming, "Uncle Steve! Daddy, let me down!"

Tony, standing at the top of the porch steps, couldn't take his eyes of Natasha and Scott. He leaned down and placed Morgan on her little feet. She immediately shot off down the steps, skipping on the walkway over to Steve. She threw herself at him, and he wrapped his arms around her as he straightened his spine.

"Hey, Morgoona!" Steve exclaimed, smiling cheekily at her before he tipped his head forward for Eskimo kisses. The little girl complied, giggling up a storm. Walking toward the porch, where Tony was heading for the front door, he asked, "What are you up to?"

"Got busted," she pouted.

He frowned. "Really? Huh. Thought I taught you better than that - we'll have to work on it, next time I'm here."

Her face fell into something that Steve could only define as 'grumpy' - brow furrowed, eyes glaring, bottom lip stuck out. "Why not now?"

"Because," he booped her nose, causing her to break the grumpy face, "I need to talk to your dad night now." Knowing Pepper's schedule, he added, leaning down as he climbed the wooden steps to put Morgan down on the flat porch, "I bet lunch is ready - you should go see what it is."

She huffed and ran off, and Steve smiled when she almost ran into Tony's legs as he came back out, holding a tray with glasses and an old fashioned milk bottle. Tony swore, turning and grabbing onto the tray with his second hand as the door swung shut.

Smirking, Steve asked, "You want any help?"

Tony straightened. "No. I'm fine." He walked over to them, and set the tray down on a little table between two whicker patio chairs, taking a seat in one. After a moment of silence, he said, with his eyes mostly on Nat, "Okay, I'll shoot - what are you doing here? Steve, I get, he's welcomed as an honorary tree to climb. But, you?" His gaze flicked over to Scott, and he gestured absently at him, "Aren't you dead?"

Scott's eyes widened when he was put in the spotlight. "Uh...No?"

Setting a hand on Tony's shoulder, Steve said, "See, that's what we're here to talk to you about. We have an idea."

Tony blinked, a slight frown tugging at his mouth. "An idea for what?"

Natasha spoke up, with a soft; "A way to get everyone back."

Tony looked alarmed for a moment, before he plastered a disbelieving smile on his face and shook his head. "No, no - No. We've been through this already. No stones. No Thanos, no threat."

Scott quickly sat down in the chair across from Tony, on the other side of the little table. He dived into the story of his time in the Quantum Realm. Five years turned into five hours. He went on to talk about how that related to Thanos and the Infinity gems; "If we use the Quantum Realm to go back in time - say, before Thanos - we could get all the stones, bring them back here, and," he snapped his fingers; Tony flinched a fraction, "get everyone back." Silence immediately followed, and he added, unsurely, "Now, we know what it sounds like..."

Steve interjected, before Scott could fumble; "Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?"

Tony seemed completely rattled by the very proposition. Shaking his head, he focused on pouring the chocolate milk from the bottle, into the four separate glasses. He said, sounding more and more bothered and irritated as he went on, "uantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition." He cast his gaze around the group. "Can we agree on that?"

No one responded to the question. Steve gave Tony a soft, "Thank you," when he handed him a glass of chocolate milk.

Attention back on Scott, Tony finalized, "In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home."

"I did," he pointed out.

As if he were talking to a child, Tony immediately corrected, "No, you accidentally survived. It's a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a..." He pulled a mildly sour face. "What do you call it?"

Scott ducked his head for a moment, seeming modest about it, though overwhelmingly proud. "A time heist?"

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before?" His tone showed its second face; "Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?"

"The Stones are in the past," Scott insisted. "We can go back and get them."

"We can snap our own fingers," Natasha attempted to convince. "We can bring _everyone_ back."

Tony seemed to ponder that for a moment, but his logic overruled desire. "Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?"

Steve interjected, also trying to convince Tony, "I don't believe we would." This was their first shot the dark since before Thor cut of Thanos' head. If this had the possibility to work, none of them could even fathom doing anything to mess it up. Not when the people they loved could come back.

Knowing his thought process, Tony scoffed. "Gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism - however, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise."

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel," Scott exclaimed, once again trying to sell the idea. "That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events -"

Leaning forward, Tony squashed that bug; "I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you _seriously_ telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on _Back To The Future_?"

Shaking his head, with a slight tremble to his voice, Scott denied it. "No."

Sitting back again; "Good. You had me worried there. 'Cause that'd be horse shit. That's not how quantum physics works."

Natasha whispered, wringing her hands, "Tony...We have to take a stand."

"We did stand. And yet, here we are."

Scott tried once again; "I know you got a lot on the line. You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did." Starting to get louder, more desperate; "And now, now we have a chance to bring her back. To bring _everyone_ back. You could get part of your family back, Buc -"

"Don't say it," Tony snapped, before he could finish the name. Steve ducked his head, fingers squeezing the wooden railing he was leaning against.

"- And you're telling me that won't even -"

Sharply, Tony exclaimed, voice dangerously low, "That's right, Scott, I won't even." He shook his head once, and said with a softer tone, "I got a kid."

Steve's head whipped up when the screen door burst open, Morgan rushing - basically waddling, but she hated it when he said that and would quack at her - toward her father. She climbed into his lap, and Tony pulled her up the rest of the way.

"Mommy told me to come and save you," she murmured into his collar. 

"Good job." He pressed his cheek to her hair, squeezing her in his arms. "I'm saved."

**| 2023: 1945 |**

Steve was in a plane, a harsh blue light surrounding him. A man was screaming, in sheer, unadulterated pain.

Bucky stared at the Red Skull in complete shock, as the man who went mad with power held a glowing blue cube. A gap had opened up in the air above him, showing a glimmering galaxy, as the power of the Tesseract ran through him and made him dissipate into the seeming-portal. The cube fell to the floor, melting a hole through the bottom of the plane and tumbling into the ocean.

Bucky quickly shook himself, and darted to the cockpit. He slid into the chair, grabbing onto the radio and speaking into the connected line. "This is Sergeant James Barnes. Over?"

After a moment, Steve heard the radio crackle. He recognized Morita's voice, "Bucky, what are your -?"

"James!" Peggy exclaimed, interrupting him. "James, are you alright?"

"Schmidt's dead, I think? The cube took him to space or something?" He glanced back over his shoulder, at the very roof of the plane, as if the portal would reopen and take him as well. "This is fucking crazy, Peg - I don't know what just happened."

"Give me your coordinates. I'll find you a safe landing site."

Fingers tight on the control wheel, Bucky was silent, staring straight out at the cold, white clouds. Steve carefully crept forward on one of the little hallways above and to the side of the belly, going around the sides of the room. He knelt behind one of the metal pillars, wrapping his hands around it to steady himself.

He barely held in his gasp when he saw Bucky's face. His mouth was open as he tried to control his breathing, cheeks bitten red from the cold. His eyes weren't focused, even as they looked out the glass.

He looked absolutely devastated.

"...James?"

"No," he said, slightly too loud. "I can't land. This thing's going too fast, I'm almost to New York...I-I'm not a pilot, I can't land this thing -"

"James, please, just give me -"

"Peggy. We made a deal. This is where Steve dies, defeating Hydra. Okay?"

After a few moments, she whispered in a breaking voice, "Okay."

Bucky pushed the wheel down, and the nose of the plane dropped. After a few moments, he softly asked through the radio, "Why did you kiss me?"

Peggy sniffled. "What?"

"Why did you kiss me, before I boarded?"

It took her a few moments to respond; "Because..." She sniffled. "Because it felt like you needed something to come back to."

**| 2023 |**

Even though he was still shaken from the scene on the Valkyrie ( _he had never asked Bucky about that mission beyond what happened to Schmidt. He never intended on knowing exactly what went down_ ), Steve stood alongside Tony and Bruce, leading the charge. 'Okay, so the 'how' works. Now we gotta figure out the 'when' and the 'where.'" He paused for a moment, and added, "Almost all of us has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

Tony piped, "Well, I'd substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn well near been killed by' one of the six Infinity Stones."

Scott shook his head, ignorant from inexperience. "I haven't. I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about."

He went ignored. Bruce barrelled on; "Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one round trip each, and these stones have been in a _lot_ of different places throughout history."

"Our history," Tony amended. He also added, "So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in."

"Which means we have to pick our targets," Clint translated, arms crossed over his chest, showing off the intricate sleeve tattoo.

Pointing at him, Tony confirmed, "Correct."

"Let's start with the Aether," Steve offered, before someone could ask where to start.

Tony turned toward the God of Thunder, who's eyes were covered by dark shades, completely unmoving. "Thor, what do you know?"

"Is he asleep?" Natasha asked, leaning forward.

"No, Rocket began, bluntly, "I'm pretty sure he's dead." He jumped over the coffee table, over to Thor, and climbed up on the arm of the chair. He raised his paw and pulled it back, and lashed out at the God's cheek before anyone could stop him.

Thor startled awake. "The Aether?" he slurred, pushing himself out of the chair and stumbling.

Tony stood his ground, squaring his posture and reaching out toward Thor in case he began to fall. But the God found his footing, and came to stand at the front of the room.

"Where to start? Umm...The Aether, first, is not a stone, someone called it a stone before. It's more of a-an angry sludge thing, so...someones gonna need to amend that. Here's an interesting story though - many years ago, my grandfather had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves." He wiggled his fingers and wobbled his voice like a ghost, " _Wo-o-o-oh_ , scary beings. So, Jane -" On image popped up on the screen, of a pretty woman with straight brown hair and a cute little nose. The sight of her made Thor falter. _"_ Oh, there she is. That's Jane...She's - an old flame of mine...She...she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time...and then the Aether stuck itself inside her. And, she became very, very sick. So I had to take her to Asgard - which is where I'm from - and we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time, you see. I got to introduce her to my mother...who's dead." His face started to fall - Steve could tell that he was losing his buzz. "And, oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, these things happen though, you know - nothing lasts -"

Tony jumped out of his chair and tried to corral Thor back into his own, but the grief-driven God was persistent;

"I'm not done yet - The only thing permanent in life is impermanence -"

Tony interrupted, "Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?"

Thor looked at him like he was suggesting they build a little tower out of blocks. "I'd like a Bloody Mary, thank you."

After a moment, Natasha sighed, and started to get up. "I'm ordering food."

< | >

"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag."

Rocket paced along the length of the table, in the midst of the Chinese takeout Nat had ordered. He occasionally nibbled at an egg roll or the large strips of carrots and onion Steve fished out of his lo mein. He was fine with them, but some of the onion pieces were too big. And when he saw that Rocket liked the carrots, he set them aside.

"Is that a person?" Scott asked, attentive as ever. Steve thought he had been excited to be brought into the team in Germany - when he had met Bucky, Steve and Sam had to stifle their chuckles - but this? The Avengers working with his plan, the possibility of going to space? Scott seemed to be in his dream world.

Slapping him upside the head, as if to tell him to pay more attention, Rocket snapped, "Morag's a planet. Quill was a person."

"A planet?" Scott exclaimed. "Like, in outer space?"

"Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything." The raccoon started to mock him by talking in a babyish tone, and Scott's face fell. "So you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll get you to space."

"What exactly is the power stone?" Steve asked, fiddling the chopsticks in his container of lo mein. He pulled out another long strand of onion and set jt on the napkin holding the other pieces, and a crab rangoon. "It's power, I understand that - but what kind of power?"

Rocket turned to him, his eyes suddenly looking a little haunted. "You can't touch the gem. If you have to, then multiple people have to take on the burden. Otherwise, there's no chance of living."

A heavy silence hovered over them, until Bruce said, a little hesitant, "It's what Thanos used to break apart the ship from Asgard."

The nerves in Thor's face twitched, before settling into a deadly, blank glare. Scott also noticed, and poured a little more vodka into Thor's mostly-empty Bloody Mary. He nudged it into Thor's plam - the god wrapped his fingers around the glass and brought it to his lips.

"We gave it to the Novo Corp. They were the only ones we trusted with it..." Rocket trailed off into an uneasy silence, his thoughts wandering. He gave a small, rag-doll shrug. "Thanos got through them."

< | >

Nebula paced in front of Steve, Scott, Natasha, Bruce and Clint, hands clasped tight behind her military-straight back. She was sharing what little she knew about the Soul Stone - it was, by far, the stone they knew the least about.

"Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir."

Natasha, taking notes as they discussed the stones, asked, "What is Vormir?"

"A dominion of death, at the very center of Celestial existence," she explained in her raspy voice. "It's where...Thanos murdered my sister."

Natasha looked up from her notepad. Steve remained silent, staring at the coffee table.

"Not it," Scott said, awkwardly, breaking the silence.

< | >

"The Tesseract," Tony started, flicking through Natasha's notebook by leaning over her shoulder. She rolled her eyes, but leaned back to let him do what he pleased. "Most of us should know about the space stone, but some of us more than others." He turned his head to Steve, who locked eyes with him. After a few moments, Tony urged him on; "You did fight a war with it, Cap."

If the nickname effected him, he didn't show it. He just did what was needed from him;

"Arnim Zola used the Tesseract to power Hydra's weapons. They shot rays of the Tesseract's power. If you got hit, you disappeared."

"The guns are what made the 107th surrender at Azzano," Natasha added, quietly, scribbling her words down on her notepad.

"Any ide where they went?" Scott asked, eyes so close to being wide with wonder.

Steve just shrugged. "We never bothered to learn. You get hit, you're gone. It was that simple. And it's not like there was an easy way to figure that out."

Tony slapped the back of the couch, looking like he had just created the overall cure to cancer. "It's the Space Stone - what if they went to space?" He turned to Clint. "That doesn't sound insane, does it?"

The man started to slowly nod, but then became more sure of his standpoint. "I mean, it is the Space Stone. I wouldn't be surprised."

"Bucky said that the Red Skull didn't exactly die," Natasha said, suddenly. "Could that mean that...Schmidt was also portalled to space, and he's still alive?"

Steve set his jaw, not wanting to comment on the idea. If Schmidt was still alive, so be it. He wasn't going to do a thing about it.

< | >

"Don't get mad at me," Tony told Steve, who was following him and feeling a bit lost. The billionaire had said that he needed to give Steve something, for the next day. Something that couldn't be given in front of the others, it seemed.

Everyone had turned in, deciding to wait until after they had some sleep for time traveling. They didn't have to worry about being quiet, though, together, they weren't overly loud people.

They came to the storage rooms, where gear was kept. Steve began to open his mouth, to ask why he would be mad, but Tony beat him to the punch; "You know how you came to the Tower first, after DC?"

Steve nodded. He remembered flashes - lunging at Bucky's throat when he'd get confused, begging for forgiveness otherwise. It had been a horrible time in his recovery, the very beginning, and he honestly didn't like go think about it.

The other man began to push jackets out of the way, getting to the very back of one of the lit closets. He pulled out a panel, and reached inside. He felt around for a moment as Steve silently watched, before pulling his hand back out, holding a box. He held it out to Steve, and nodded his head at it. "This was yours."

Steve took the box in tentative hands, and carefully pulled open the lid. Inside sat his folded Winter Soldier suit. The top with all of its buckles and straps glared up at him, the one sleeve tucked underneath and the kevlar TAC trousers folded underneath.

He looked back up at Tony, questions in his eyes. But he focused on the main point, not on why Tony had kept it all this time; "Why are you giving this to me?" he asked, voice coming out hoarse. He cleared his tight throat, attempting to correct his voice.

Tony bit at his lip for a moment before explaining. "Loki's Scepter, the Mind Stone, it goes to a bunch of Hydra agents. They board an elevator and take it to Alexander Pierce, who also tried to take the Tesseract before it was ordered to be taken back to Asgard...We need you to get on that elevator."

Everything in him screamed at him to refuse. But he couldn't. Not when this could bring his friends and the love of his life back.

So he agreed, easily, despite his fears;

_What if they took me again?_

_But Shuri removed the programming,_ he had to remind himself.

_Mistakes happen..._ One of Zola's favorite phrases.

_What if_ _I_ _hand them a second Winter Soldier?_

**| 2023: 2012 |**

Rumlow asked, doubt heavy in his voice, "Mission report?"

Steve felt a smirk tug at his lips. He sprung into action, elbowing the man he knew was dead in the face as he spun into a roundhouse, his foot meeting one agent right in the chest, hard enough to knock him and another one over, like bowling pins. Steve landed on both feet, and lunged toward the emergency STOP button. He slammed the side if his fist into it, before grabbing onto the railing and twisting his body - he wrapped his legs around the torso of one agent, and spung himself around to grab at the shoulders of another, pulling them both off their feet. He kicked the gun out of a holster, snatching it up and taking aim at Brock Rumlow.

"What, did the Captain find you?" his old handler asked, as if it was ridiculous.

Steve just glared. He wasn't going to respond and take the satisfaction. He let the gun fall slightly, and shot Rumlow in the abdomen. The man fell, and two agents rushed at him with sparking stun batons.

Steve dropped the gun leaped up, grabbing on to the vented ceiling. He kicked one in the face - hard enough to knock him out - and wrapped a leg around the other's neck, pushing his head into the wall. His skull cracked, but Steve couldn't make himself care.

He fell back to the floor, scooping the gun back up and shooting the agent guarding Sitwell in the thigh. He shouted as he fell, revealing Sitwell's shaking body, the case held behind him.

Steve let the barrel of the gun fall, not feeling threatened by him. He was the worst Double Agent Steve had ever seen, and that said a lot. He held out his metal hand, making sure he could clearly see the differences, and ordered, "The case."

Sitwell immediately handed it over, like the coward he was. Steve didn't hesitate to whip him across the face with it, the corner meeting his temple just right - he crumbled on top of teo unconscious agents.

He reached back around to resume the elevator ride, selecting the nearest floor. The doors opened sooner than he thought they would, and he rushed out onto the floor. He tapped at his comm; "Tony? Scott? I have the scepter."

There was no response. Steve continued blindly through the confusing Tower, continuing to try and get their attention.

"Guys? Come on - this isn't funny."

He stopped short when he raised his gaze from the floor, and saw Bucky coming to a shocked halt only a few feet away from him. Heavy duty suit ripped around the shoulders and sides, a burn mark dark on his stomach. The shield was heavy on his arm, hair pulled up in a haphazard bun with strands falling down over the nape of his neck and the sides of his dirty face.

Eyes shining and his bottom lip quivering, he demanded with a harsh voice - from blazing anger and throat-constricting sadness - " _What the hell did they do to you?_ "

Steve's heart broke. In his time, he hadn't been able to face Bucky like this, as his mind wrapped around the identity of the Winter Soldier. Practically watching the gears turning in Bucky's head was like sawing his arm off right above the elbow all over again.

Steve moved forward, fingers wrapped tight around the handle of the case. Bucky flinched back but didn't move aside from that, letting Steve place his vibranium hand on the side of his throat and pull their foreheads together.

"What happened to you?" Bucky asked, barely choking the words out.

"War," he said, simply. "It changed me, Buck. It changed us all."

Tracing his fingertips over the black and gold plating of the vibranium arm, Bucky spoke softly; "You're not my Steve."

His fingers locked around Steve's wrist and he twisted to fix his shoulder under the metal arm. The world spun, and suddenly Steve was on his back with Bucky's boot on his collarbone, pressing down too hard. With a searing fury in his steel blue eyes, he spoke through his comm, "Clint, Nat - I have Loki and the scepter, but I need some backup." He pushed harder on Steve's chest, who gasped in response. He said, with a growl in his voice; "He needs a lesson in what faces he can and cannot wear."

Steve just remained quiet and still, han remaining tight around the handle of the case - waiting for Natasha and Clint seemed like a _somewhat_ good move. They had sense, and they'd be able to calm Bucky, who was in heavy denial and worn thin by the alien attack.

It was a few minutes of Bucky glaring down at him, but Steve held his sharp gaze.

"I'm not going to fight you, Buck," he promised.

Footsteps took over his senses, and he glanced to the side to see Natasha and Clint rushing over the thick glass catwalk. They came to a stop when they saw the scene, their eyes widening.

"Holy shit," Clint gasped.

Bucky pressed down harder on Steve's chest, making him gasp. "Buck, come on -" he tried, not quite pleading. "I'm not Loki."

"Yeah?" he growled, pulling a knife from a sheath in his boot. "I don't believe a word of that."

"Bucky!" Clint intercepted. Taking a moment, he spoke more steadily, "If he was Loki, he would've turned back by now. You got him, the joke would be done...Look at the timeline."

"The arm's different," Natasha noted, monotone.

"Wakandan vibranium, twenty sixteen," Steve listed, almost instinctively - realizing his arm was, for once, in his favor.

The mention of a far-off year got Bucky's attention. The direct anger shifted from his face, more into confusion or blank disbelief. "What did you just say?"

"Right now, I'm currently in a Hydra base just outside of the city," Steve revealed, not giving too much information so Bucky wouldn't be tempted to go rescue him just yet. "Me - the one right in front of you, hi - I'm from the year twenty-twenty three. I need to take this, for the good of my world."

Bucky had his eyes on Natasha and Clint, seemingly having a quiet conversation with them. After a few long moments, he sighed, and looked back down at Steve. "You're the Winter Soldier?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"They found me in the ravine, my arm sawd off above the elbow - don't worry about it," he insisted. "You get me out in a few years. It's okay. Just leave me alone for now, until everything falls into place."

Bucky pursed his lips, before asking at a whisper, "How am I supposed to know that you're really you?"

Steve sighed, softly. He dug through his brain for a significant detail, one that not everyone would know. Bucky's family came to mind, and it hit him. "I always knew that you wanted kids. You were a family guy, through and through. It always killed me that we weren't able to have our own family."

Bucky immediately got off him, grabbing his wrists and pulling him up. Steve stumbled into him, and he landed himself in a tight embrace.

One that he had missed.

One that reminded him off home.

**| 2023: 1983 |**

Steve looked up at Grant Barnes in shock, stuck on his knees at the man's feet. His glare was the epitome of 'if looks could kill' - Steve could see every Barnes Family glare in it, and it caused a slight spark of reminiscence amidst his fear. He felt small underneath it, in the stolen military uniform that he had thrown over his old getup.

Last time he had looked Grant Barnes in the eyes, he had been dead. The Winter Soldier shot him just above the ear, then the throat.

"I think," he murmured, simmering with angry heat, "you chose the wrong man's face." He cocked his gun and let the barrel rest on Steve's forehead. "Wanna tell me who you are and what you're doing in S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I can explain -"

He wasn't surprised, but the last thing he expected was to get a pistol-whip-and-kick combo. Laying on his stomach with his palms pressed to the floor, groaning, Grant said above him, "Then explain." He settled his gun back on him, this time, on the back of his thigh, right around his hamstring. "Tell me the truth."

"Bucky sent me. I'm Steve Rogers - I promise you, I'm not lying."

He scoffed, beginning to find the whole thing funny. "You're dead. He knows you're dead. You got one more chance before I shoot you. So, prove it."

He sighed, forcing himself to relax. "Buck wouldd play Candy Land with you when you were little, and make the living room into a fort. He would do anything for the three of you. Chrys -" The words suddenly came to him, a bright light going off in his head (stemming from the first time Chrys had ever called him 'Pops'), and they quickly tumbled from his mouth; "You and Chrys said that if something crazy were to ever happen, you'd immediately accept me into the family."

Steve had hoped it would work. But Grant was silent, to the point that Sreve had to ask, "You want me to go on?"

"Benefit of the doubt," he said, voice clipped with uncertaintly. "Why are you here?"

"I'm not from this year," he revealed. He wasn't sure what it was, but he trusted Grant - he knew that, above everything, he was a great man with a heart of gold, defined by good intentions that sparked results. "My world was torn apart. I was sent here to get something that will help fix it. Your father - Bucky - he died." He paused, gathering himself before continuing on. "Right in front of me...I'm just trying to get him and half the universe back."

"He - Half the universe?" he exclaimed, almost in wonder. "Okay. This is wild. I have to hear this." He pulled the gun away, getting up from one knee and stepping away from Steve's body. "Fire away, imposter."

He started with rightening himself. Then, he lifted his left sleeve, letting the metal arm glint in the barely-lit office. Grant immediately skittered away, sliding himself across the floor of the room, once again pointing his gun at him. His glare was back, expression made of stone.

Steve put his hands up in surrender. "I'm not going to hurt you. I don't hurt people anymore. Bucky got me out. HYDRA lost control."

"I-I can't - fuck, I can't believe this," he exclaimed, stumbling over his words. "I'm dreaming - Okay, come on; talk, before I wake up or some shit."

Steve did as told - he didn't worry about telling Grant too much, knowing he would keep the secret, and that he would be dead before any of this happened; "I can't tell you everything. An alien wiped out half of all life forms, with a snap of his fingers. He used the Infinity Stones to do it."

"What are the Infinity Stones?"

"The gem inside the Tesseract is one of them. Bucky turned to dust right in front of me, Bianca in front of Chrys. It's been five years, and new advancements have been made. We're trying to get everyone back. We went to twenty-twelve to get the Tesseract, but we failed. I need these -" he reached down and pulled two of the _many_ red vials of Pym Particles from his pocket, "- to get Tony Stark and I home." Grant was silent, staring at him with wide eyes. "Are you going to keep me from going home?"

Before he could answer, the door swung open, and Tony was shoved inside.

"Look, Peg -!" he was exclaiming.

"Don't you dare 'Peg' me."

Peggy Carter had certainly aged, but she was still the strong-willed woman that had knocked an asshole cadet off his feet. She obviously still had that tendency - Tony was sporting a red mark on his face.

"You should thank your lucky stars that I found you instead of Howard!" she went on, reaching out to slap him upside the head. She opened her mouth to go on, but she noticed the scene - her son on the floor, gun in his hands between his thighs, and Steve on the other side of the room.

Her eyes softened when they landed on Steve.

Steve swore, before she could say anything. He tossed Tony one of the red vials. He caught it, and they activated their suits at the same time. As Steve inserted the vial and began to set the GPS for home, he told Grant, sternly, "Nothing leaves this room."

With that, nineteen eighty three was gone. And the first and last time Steve would ever meet Bucky's son.

**| 2023 |**

" _Steve?_ "

He froze, gasping for air as he faced Thanos' army on his own - Tony had been discarded, Thor was down. The others were somewhere in the rubble that used to be Avengers Compound.

The closest thing Steve had to home.

" _Can you hear me?_ "

That was Bucky's voice in ear, crackling as the comms attempted to reconnect.

He couldn't speak. Bucky was back. Their efforts weren't a waste.

Then Sam's voice came in; " _On your left_."

Steve glanced over his shoulder, in time to see a sparkling golden circle unravel. T'Challa and Shuri both made eye contact with him, inclining their heads in solidarity. Determination weighed their expressions. Okoye looked smug, thrilled, and ready to kill.

Sam flew out above the Wakandans' heads, circling in the air above Steve's head. Steve grinned, unable to believe it.

The plan - the crazy, ridiculous plan - had actually worked.

A large hand settled on his shoulder, and he whirled around the other way. He was suddenly face-to-face with Bucky, Wanda just a step behind him. 

With an amazed smirk on his face, Bucky asked, "What the hell did you do?"

Steve was too exhausted to answer. He instead threw his still-shaking arms around the man he loved more than anything, getting blood on the back of the gear Shuri had gifted them both. Steve felt him press his lips to his dirt-covered cheek, barely on the corner of his mouth, lingering like the ashes in the atmosphere.

When Bucky pulled away, his eyes were set in a glare on the other side of the field. On Thanos. He stepped out of the reuniting embrace, glancing around at their new army. Steve's eyes fell on the giant form of Scott standing above them, at Thor's electricity-wound armor, the "magicians" that held golden shields in front of them.

Bucky shouted; "AVENGERS!" His voice projected across the battlefield, booming over the wreckage to meet as many ears as possible. Weapons were raised, stances were set. Red lace curled around Wanda's nimble fingers. Bucky clasped twin vibranium blades behind the vibranium gauntlets, more hidden on his person. Steve caught Mjolnir in his right hand, his elbow getting pushed back from the force. He locked his eyes on Thanos, and the final word of the war cry fell from his bloody lips.

" _Assemble_."


End file.
